The Hell-er-Nator: Chaos Machine
by Ironbear
Summary: Naturally, the bratty little kid from next door swiped the last military style rifle out of the cheap barrel, leaving only a few weapons that weren't what he needed for his soldier costume. Fortunately, Xander was struck by a burst of inspiration...
1. Prologue, disclaimers, and forward

**The Hell-er-Nator: Chaos Machine**

_by Ironbear_

A Buffy the Vampire Slayer-The Terminator crossover Event.

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"**The Hell-er-nator: Chaos Machine****"** – Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, and ensemble cast (YAHF x-over: The Terminator)

**Story Blurb:** Naturally, the bratty little kid from next door swiped the last military style rifle out of the cheap barrel, leaving only a few weapons that weren't what he needed for his soldier costume. Fortunately, Xander was struck by a burst of inspiration...

**Title:** "Hell-er-nator: The Chaos Machine"

**Author:** Ironbear

**Rating:** PG-13 (FR-18 at TtH) going all the way up to R or FR-21. There is sex, violence, threats of non-con, and bad language. And, at some points, violent death, and violent sex, some of it non-consensual. Actually, _all_ of the violent death is non-consensual. Those chapters will be marked and rated as FR-21 when they are posted.

**Disclaimer:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series and characters thereof belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Kazui Entertainment. The Terminator, T2, and characters thereof belong to Orion Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Warner Bros, and James Cameron. Everyone else belongs to their respective owners too, except for my original characters, whom I suppose belong mostly to themselves.

This is a work of derivative fiction. All persons, characters, names, places, locations, entities, personages, and/or deities contained within are purely fictional, or fictional representations thereof, and any resemblance to any real persons, characters, names, places, locations, entities, personages, and/or deities are purely coincidental, or they are used in a purely fictional manner.

Don't worry: there will be a full list of credits and disclaimers in the afterword. There'll _have_ to be.

Opening title song lyrics are from "Out in the Fields" by Gary Moore.

**Summary:** When the last toy military rifle is taken almost from under his nose, Xander is forced to improvise – his plans for being the Two-dollar Costume King and going as a regular soldier have just gone down the drain. Fortunately, one of the remaining weapons is a toy shotgun. Also fortunately, Xander remembers something from one of his favorite movies that will do just fine as a cheap, quickie costume. All he needs is a few more odds and ends... _Un_fortunately, Larry Blaisdell decides against going as a pirate when _he's_ struck by the same inspiration.

**Type:** Action-adventure, sci-fi, romance, military, super heroic, and even some horror.

**Chronology:** Takes place during BtVS "Halloween", 'natch.

**Pairings:** Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase, Jonathan Levinson and O.C., and others. Mostly canon. Mostly.

** Author's Note(s):** Part I of a multi-part part series. Part one covers the events of the first Terminator movie. Kind of.

Hey, it's that time of year. I just _had_ to do the nearly obligatory YAHF part of my resume. ;)

**Warnings!** Proceed at own risk! Sex, some non-con, nudity, death... oh my gods, is there death. It's a freaking _Terminator_ crossover. Whattya _expect_ fer crying out loud? Canon characters die. Canon characters get brutalized. Secondary canon characters die. OCs die. NPCs die. Cops die. People die both on _and_ off-screen. _Dead_ people die. There's _violence_: my fight scenes can be a bit visceral at times. There's snark out the wazoo (Geezus Keerist, it has Xander and Cordelia – of _course_ there's snark). There's rampant cuteness. There's kung fu, claw fu, vampire fu, and gun fu. There's even express rifle fu. Hell, there is _Land_ Rover fu. There's lame humor, bad humor, gallows humor, soldier's humor, and even inappropriate humor and humor during sex. There's brick jokes. There's what happened to the mouse? jokes. There's harsh language. There's anti-religious humor and snark. There's...

Oh, hell. It is seventy freaking plus _chapters_ and over four hundred _thousand_ words long. I'm pretty damned sure there's _something_ in here to offend just about_ anyone_, and if I find I missed _your_ particular hot button issue, I can always rewrite a section to toss _it_ in there too. ;)

About the only thing I think I _didn't_ manage to pull off is character bashing. Hey – I actually _like_ all of the various characters, even the bad guys and the good guys that I can't stand. OK, maybe there's a couple that don't come off at their best, but they were pricks in canon, too. Other hand, there's a few I portray in a better light than their canon depictions, so, neener neener.

**Cast of Characters (Main):** Xander Harris, Cordelia Chase, Jonathan Levinson, Aura, Tor Hauer, Heidi Barrie, Larry Blaisdell, Harmony Kendall; Detective Paul Stein; Joyce Summers, Dawn Summers, Riley Finn, Professor Maggie Walsh, Consulting Psychiatrist. Several major OCs.

**Dramatis Personae (Secondary):** Screw it: it has a cast of freaking _hundreds_, at least.

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**Dedicated to:**

_All of the various fan fiction authors who have managed to make the YAHF my favorite guilty pleasure fic genre for so very _many_ years now._

_This one is for you, guys and gals._

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**Author's Forward: That Thing at the Beginning –**

No really long forward on this one. It doesn't really need it (hell, it's already long enough) and you're not here to listen to me ramble anyway. You're here for the story, I'm pretty sure.

There is one thing that I do need to note, however...

Astute readers, and those conversant with Buffy-verse canon, comics canon, sci-fi and fantasy novels and movies and television, and various vehicles, firearms, cartridges, computer tech, and etc., etc., will note certain things that seem a bit off as you read through.

These are _not_ mistakes on the part of the idiot author. They _are_ anachronisms in most cases, but they are _intentional_ anachronisms.

_And_ intentional deviations from canon.

What they _are_, are in-story context notifications that the world and alternate universe here in this story is subtly (and sometimes _not_ so subtly) _different_ from both _our_ world, and from Buffy-verse 1.0.

So, when you run across things like certain car models being introduced ahead of time, certain novels and novel series being published a few years earlier, certain television seasons being mentioned back before they aired here, and cartridges that were in use post '97 being present, it's an alert to the reader that that's how things worked and _work_ here.

Alternate universe, remember? Decision trees. Not all things occur in the same order in every single universe and reality in the multiverse.

Ditto for odd bits of Buffy-verse lore that aren't quite as die hard viewers might remember them. Alternate Universe, again. Not necessarily precisely identical to Canon Buffy-verse 1.0. And authorial preference: I hate it when a writer includes a huge author's note at the front explaining the differences between canon and his/her story universe, all of which happened offstage. I'd _much_ rather introduce the differences in the context of the story.

Certain other things, like power levels for various characters, are authorial decisions made to fit things to the storyline.

And no, I am not gonna apologize for doing this. Just in the Marvel Universe alone, powers and abilities and strength levels and even back story vary so much from writer to writer, artist to artist, editor to editor, and even issue to _issue,_ sometimes in the same run, that a writer _has_ to make certain decisions about which version he or she is gonna use. My decisions may not be the same as someone else's, and that's ok by me.

They're _mine_, and I am at least gonna make every effort to keep them consistent within the confines of the storyline. (Which is generally a lot more than the writers at Marvel and ME ever bothered to do).

So, not much point in bitching to me in comments about that stuff. You'll just get the short form of this forward in response, and annoy me and irritate yourself.

Do, however, call out obvious typos and in names and inconsistencies in my usage of things. Even when you proofread multiple times and have beta readers as I do, you still, irritatingly enough, have errors slip in. Grrf.

This is not to say "don't comment or review". Oh, gods no. By all means...

I read and treasure every single comment. I do my very best to answer and respond to every comment I get, and every email, even the critical ones. I love constructive critique, even when I disagree with it. (And I have been known to argue endlessly for my interpretation over a critic's in email or comments, so be aware. Good naturedly, usually, because while I can be caustic and sarcastic, I try my best to not be offensive.)

Flames will be ignored, or possibly snickered at if they're good ones.

While I've been writing fanfic for some time now, this is my very first YAHF fic. I hope you guys enjoy it and find it as entertaining to read as I did to write.

As always, there'll be an expanded list of disclaimers and credits where credits are due in the afterword. I dislike author's notes in the story itself, so I don't do them. I save up all that stuff for where it should be put: at the beginning and end of the actual story.

Enjoy, and I'll see you guys in comments and in the sequel.

Let me know what you think.

– Ironbear

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**The Hell-er-Nator: Book I – **

**Chaos Machine**

_by Ironbear_

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"_Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.__"_ – Rules for a Gunfight (Anonymous)

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**Prologue I: Small Victories... **

_Tuesday April 20, 2033; Fargo Air National Guard Base, Fargo, North Dakota; Night 10:23pm – _

Master Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks (no relation), Tech-Comm, North American Resistance Command, felt a shiver run up his spine that had nothing at all to do with the coolness of the Dakotas night...

It was always like that, right before an Op. No matter how good your Intel, no matter how good the scouting, no matter how air tight the planning and pre-mission drills and prep. Always. Never, ever failed. You _always_ had, at some point, the nerves, the cold chill, and an attack of the heebie-jeebies.

Because even the best of plans never ever survived first contact with the enemy.

And, unless you were extremely lucky, luckier than you deserved, generally at least a few of your people didn't, either. Nor second contact. Nor third...

All right, belay that crap, Hicks. Do _not_ jinx the mission, nor the teams.

What you don't think about, can't and _won't_ happen. _Believe_ it, imagine it, _will_ it to be so, and it _will_ be true. Because magic, they keep saying, works off of belief, imagination, will, and _intent_.

And _believe_ me, I have _intent_ coming out of my hairy and no longer young ass, dammit, Hicks told himself.

Rolling onto his side slightly, he pulled the small leather folder on its thong from beneath his t-shirt, and kissed it lightly. He didn't open it. Didn't need to. Couldn't see the images inside, anyway, and it was ritual, really, and a ritual very nearly as old as his time in the Resistance.

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, he murmured a brief prayer to gods that he _knew_ existed and had long ago come to hate.

Opening them again, he caught a quiet murmur from his right, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tech-sergeant First Jaime Summers putting away her St. Brigid's Cross, completing her own pre-game rite. The murmur, he knew without glancing that direction, came from Tech-sergeant Vi Sorenson, a brief muttered prayer to whatever gods she believed in and hated...

No one in the Human Resistance worshiped the Gods, not any of them. Not any more.

Beseech on occasion, yes. Make ritual acknowledgment of, yeah. Send up the occasional offering to, yes. Invoke during the funerals and rites for the dead, hell yeah.

Worship? Not on your life.

No god or gods that could allow _this_ to happen to humanity were worthy of worship.

Then again, Vi was probably offering homage to the Goddesses of Slayers, one or both. Or possibly to the spirit of the General of the Armies... Any number of Slayers in the resistance venerated both of their progenitors, and _all_ of the resistance _venerated_ their long dead Marshall General and her Consort.

Right palm caressing the pistol grip of his M41-A3, Hicks raised the macro-binoculars to his eyes, ignoring the brief moment of blurring as they automatically compensated for the range, light conditions, and atmospheric haze and auto-focused. A-yup. Fat, dumb and happy. Poor bastards had zero clue what was about to happen to them.

Grinning mirthlessly, more a peeling back of the lips from teeth that felt suddenly sharp to his imagination, he lowered the binocs and then glanced over. Vi grinned back with equal lack of mirth, her eyes bright with anticipation. She settled herself a bit more solidly behind the butt-stock of her RND-4500, cheekbone going to the cheek-piece once again as her eye found the sight of the .950 JDJ.

Even with the massive muzzle brake and the hydraulic recoil compensating system, only a Slayer, an android – or a Terminator – could handle the massive kick of that weapon. Hell, only one or the other could carry the damned one hundred and twenty-five pound semiautomatic.

But... thirty-four hundred grains of solid bronze slug wrapped around a tungsten alloy penetrator and capped with a titanium/tungsten alloy armor piercing tip. Twenty-two hundred and fifty feet per second. Over thirty-eight _thousand_ foot pounds of muzzle energy.

What that projectile would do to the chest or head armoring of a Terminator, _any_ make or model, _any_ series, just had to be _seen_ to be believed.

And an AP-HEI round could do a pretty good number on one of the flying HK models; not even considering what HE incendiary frags could and would do the demon-human hybrid cyborgs that made up the bulk of the enemy's foot soldiers. None of this 'sporting uses' crap. The BATFE had been a thing of the past as long as Sitcoms had.

Vi loved the thing. Not that he'd ever make the joke out loud, unlike some soldiers, but he suspected that she even had sex with the damned thing on occasion...

Not that he could blame her. He had his own medicine gun in the form of a synthetic stocked Steyr-Mannlicher Heavy Scout Rifle in .416 Remington. _All_ of the old timers had something similar: half security blanket and half Terminator insurance.

Hell of a thing when a thirty-four year old San Diego boy qualified as an old timer in this man's army, but it was that kind of a world these days.

Shifting slightly, Summers settled herself in behind the tripod of the laser guided Dragon anti-armor missile launcher, her eye to the sight reticule. Too long a distance from here to anything down below for the missile, but that wasn't its main purpose here.

It was the laser designator that was the key piece of hardware on that thing tonight.

Raising the viewers to his eyes again, Hicks carefully scanned the surrounding terrain and the areas below for any sign, no matter how slight, that they'd drawn attention to their position or been spotted. Any, even the tiniest bit of movement out of the ordinary.

Having to do this under fire would suck rocks. Worse would be if they had to abort due to premature evacuation.

Vi clicked her mike, and Hicks became aware that for the past few moments he'd been hearing a distant, muffled drone.

"Right on time," Jamie said, chuckling. "One thing you gotta say about Michaela's Manglers, they're _never_ fashionably late to the party."

"Promptness is a highly prized quality in this man's army, Summers," Hicks said, softly, not needing to check his watch. His own innate and ingrained time sense told him it was very nearly ninety seconds to _go_. And the time stamp in the lower right field of vision of the macro-binocs gave it to him in milspec time if he needed the verification.

"One for the money, two for the show... " Vi murmured. Just as she reached "And four to – "

A double click came over the comm net and a crisp quiet voice said, "And showtime!"

And something went up with one hell of an incandescent flash down there near the building complexes of long defunct Hector International Airport. Long moments later, the deep rolling crash of another .950 JDJ came cascading across the distance, followed by the rolling boom of a 15mm BRG, and the actinic stuttering flash of a heavy automatic pulse rifle came up in answer. The strobing flashes reached out fingers into the darkness.

The JDJ, or another one like it, spoke again and the tripod mounted weapon went abruptly silent.

Rona, probably, considering the direction of the distance delayed report. Shannon's position was off to the other side, and yeah, there was _her_ heavy rifle opening up as well, sending another heavy weapon position up as its power pack detonated.

As if he were connected to them via the nerve endings, Hicks could feel the other eleven members of Hicks' Harriers tensing slightly, or relaxing as was their wont. Gearing up for combat...

Down at the air port, and over at the air field of the old Fargo Air National Guard Base, aerial Hunter Killers began rising up from the tarmac, ducted fans already spun up to full rotation. Slower to power up, HK Attack Helos began to lift shortly afterward. Search lights and infrared began to probe into the night. Plasma rifle armed T-800's and 850's, and wheeled or tracked Hunter Killer ground units moved out from their redoubts and revetments. They began heading out in search and destroy patterns to track down the attacking force as heavy pulse rifle fire and the projectiles from Barretts and RND-3500s started picking off targets of opportunity.

Almost precisely ninety seconds in, the drone grew suddenly louder and then began to doppler away almost immediately as a squadron of RAH-66 Super Comanches and Apache gunships swept over their position, flying nap of earth and en route to the burgeoning chaos below. They almost immediately split into pairs, veering off to intercept and take down the aerial HKs. Two full flights of V-22 Raptor gunships, each with its own escort of Super Cobras and Tiger gunships swept over them just after. Similar groups came in at speed, weapons hot, from south-southeast and northwest by north.

"And the Manglers have arrived," Vi said. "I'd say 'Gods help the bad guys,' but I don't particularly want them to get any divine intervention."

"Damn straight," Hicks said. The weapons fire down below and ahead of them was damned near continuous now, and off to the other side of Fargo ANGB, cascading streams of tracer, mixed with rocket fire, arced downward as a pair of Spectre Gunships began to light up the night – and the enemy.

"Oh, Puff the magic dragon," Summers sang softly under her voice, "Lived by the sea... "

A lance of incandescent gas and a rolling smash announced that a 105mm atop an upgunned Stryker assault vehicle had just punctuated some ground based Hunter Killer's sentence. Other guns opened up, 25mm Bushmasters, 35mm Oerlikons, and GAU-19 Gecal Fifties announcing their arrival on scene as Hardesty's Hellhounds, Tech-comm North America's Armored Calvary Brigade swept into the field.

A trio of Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolts began adding their better than two cents worth to the carnage, flying in their arcing, looping attack patterns. The V-22 Raptors, little brothers to the Spectres, were already spiraling over the battlefield between Hicks and the Harriers and the complex far down and away. Comanches and aerial HKs exchanged missile and cannon fire. A stuttering strobe and a distant aerial flash denoted the place where an aerial HK's plasma burst found its way home and a Super Comanche ceased to exist as its on-board weapons, fuel, and stores cooked off.

"Lock and load, First Sergeant," Hicks said. "On my mark... "

"Locked, loaded, and primed, Master Sergeant," Jaime said, her voice crisp and all business as Hicks began the countdown in his head...

"And, _mark!_"

Tech-sergeant First Summers' finger moved a bare fraction of an inch, depressing the firing button, and the invisible beam of the infrared targeting laser shot off through the night to impact on the target building far away and down below.

A very few long, long and endless moments later, a feminine drawl came over Hicks' headset. "Lined up and on the money," she said, "And good shooting, Leg. We are making our run. Over."

There was a long and endless pause that didn't, couldn't have lasted as long as it seemed to, and the voice came over again, "Package dropped. Five by five and in the groove."

Far overhead and to their rear, the three surviving B-52 Specials and five F-111 Phoenix bombers of Tech-comm, North American Resistance Command, Army of the Resistance, released their packages and sent them on their way.

Three thermobaric GBU-43B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bombs, the so-called MOABs, and five ten-thousand pound J-DAM penetrator munitions sped away from their launch aircraft. Shortly after, with the exception of the central MOAB – that one would home in on the designated target – they would each use their own targeting sensors and built-in targeting packages to locate the other buildings in their memory banks, and activate their control surfaces to aim themselves precisely to the payload point.

And then the six Fairchild Thunderbolts and six Harriers following them would scream in, drop their payloads and rubble what was left and smash the rubble. Popping up from nap of earth after the launch, they would go into their looping attack patterns and proceed to strafe what was left with air to ground missiles and cannon fire.

Following which, even before the rubble had hardly had time to cool, the heavy combat teams of Merrill's Marauders and Ricardo's Roughnecks would sweep in on their Lynx attack choppers, and begin the lethal and painstaking task of penetrating the below ground areas of the complex that hadn't collapsed from the penetrator bombardment. Their task to clear out the holdouts, wipe it clean of the hybrids, and set charges to take down the rest of the non-visible areas of the facility... and to capture or kill any of the human collaborators left inside.

A dirty and deadly job, but... needs must, and the Devil is always driving here.

Not them, though. As the complex below and ahead of them began to detonate from repeated impacts, Hicks nodded to himself. The part of the Harriers in this was done.

"Pack it up, people," he said. "Harriers, saddle up and let's move 'em out. We are _leav-_ing."

"Damn, Sarge," a male voice called back softly from ahead and to one side. "We never get to have _any_ fun no more."

"Heya, Mal," Hicks called back, his voice equally soft and pitched to carry just so. "We got to have _plenty_ of fun in St. Louis, earlier this year."

Tech-sergeant First Jaime Summers unbolted and then hoisted the Dragon off of the tripod one handed, the casual display demonstrating the inherent strength of her bionic left arm, and the reinforced skeletal structure it was anchored to.

Cyborg vs cyborg, Hicks thought to himself. Far, far too many resistance members had had limbs and/or body parts replaced by Tech-comm's surgeons... Not that anyone cared. No one in the Resistance were technophobes, or if they were, they had the sense to keep it to themselves. Too many of them, and too much of their survival depended on technology. The youngest Summers girl was simply one among many.

Some of their friendly tech made people nervous. It was just the _enemy's_ technology that _everyone_ feared and _hated_.

"Saddled up and ready to move," Vi announced. She handed off the tripod for her RND-4500 to a weapons crewman, slinging the heavy weapon diagonally across her back. Accepting her DPMS .325 Winchester Short Magnum AR-10 from another weapon crewer, she glanced to Hicks, nodding.

Nodding back, he said, "All right, people. Withdraw by the numbers. Scouts out. Let's pull back to the dust off point and head home."

First one in, last one out. Hand clasped around the grip of his battle rifle, finger outside of the trigger guard, he sent one last backward glance toward the battle still raging below their vantage point.

Down there cyborgs and automata were being turned to scrap metal, and men and women were dying. Just not _his_ men and women.

Not this time.

Thank you, miserable gods. Not this time.

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_Wednesday April 21, 2033; Devil's Butte, Black Rock, North Dakota; Early Morning 1:43pm – _

The armed V-22 Osprey dumped them atop Devil's Butte to find Dawn Summers already there, putting the finishing touches on a mystical looking diagram large enough for all of Hicks' Harriers and more.

Hicks waited a few while the Osprey spun its prop-rotors back up to speed and lifted off in Vertol, swirling down and away almost immediately to zoom nap of earth off to dust off point Charlie for another load. And then another, until it went bingo fuel and had to head back to a depot.

"Ma'am," Hicks said, snapping a casual salute to Tech-Commander Dawn Summers of the Resistance, Command Lieutenant Dawn Summers of the Irregulars. "Scratch one Terminator production facility. Merrill's people should be digging out the holdouts as we speak."

The pair of big wolfhounds with Dawn eyed the group suspiciously, sniffing the air. All of the Harriers automatically and obligingly moved so that the breeze would carry their scent to the big dogs. Dogs _hated_ Terminators, and they were still the best last line alarm system against Infiltrator units. The more sensitive ones could even detect the newer 970i Humaniform cyborgs about seventy percent of the time.

No matter how they were made, or born and vat raised, something about the demonic taint to MALCOLM's cybernetic implants set them off in a way that the Resistance's own cybernetics and androids did not.

"Good," Dawn said, turning large blue eyes and a wide, bright grin on him. "And _good_."

Damn straight. One less factory to build MALCOLM's hunter killers, infiltrators, search and destroy, and assassin units. One more nail in the coffin of the enemy, and damn, but late enough coming after all these years.

Not really winning, not yet, but they were pushing MALCOLM, CAIN, and their forces back on all fronts, and retaking ground and facilities from them at long, long last. That they _would_ win, eventually, was not in doubt.

MALCOLM was a demon and a computer program, with all of the limitations that both implied, despite his advantages. CAIN was a demon and a cyborg and a robot brain. Ditto for him.

_Human beings _were the deadliest predators and the most tenacious survivors in the universe.

And any species that could produce a Cordelia Chase, a Xander Harris, a Kendra Young, a Morgan Chase, or a Dawn Summers wasn't _capable_ of losing. It just flat wasn't in the cards, nor in the genes.

"All aboard for the Home Express," Dawn said, her eyes crinkling slightly at the corners, as if she'd been reading his mind. And hell, maybe she had, or at least his expressions. His thoughts were probably printed all over his stupid face.

The fourteen members of Hick's Harriers took their places inside of the elaborately drawn circle, with Dawn at the apex. Murmuring a string of liquid syllables under her breath, Dawn pricked a forefinger, touching it to one of the inner lines, and closed the circle with an act of will and a pulse of energy. Green, heatless fire raced along the lines of the diagram, tracing out the circles and curves and limning the various sigils and runes in outlines of light –

– And everything flashed _green_ for a moment -

– And then they were _home_.

Home base. Beluria Castle, city of New Sunnyvale (Sunny_vale_, because _no one _would name a town, city, or settlement Sunny_dale_ and tempt the worthless gods), on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility.

Pylea.

The very first fallback position and long ago main base of Tech-Comm's resistance command, way back when in 2013 after the Long Dark fell.

Roughly a million people – human beings, rather – plus another half a million or so assorted friendly and allied demons, crossbreeds, and various non-humans. And another two and a half million or so scattered out across the surface of Pylea in various settlements and Steadings. Not counting the native human beings _of_ Pylea...

Counting the other two redoubts in other dimensions away from Earth, and not counting the one that no one mentioned or thought about, there were just over ten million human survivors off world.

Add in the millions still trapped on earth in MALCOLM and CAIN's hunting ground, and it was still just a small, tiny fraction of the _billions_ that had been alive prior to 2013...

Now that they were back and away from the front, Jaime stepped forward and threw her arms around Dawn in a quick fierce hug. "Commander Mom," she said, stepping back and snapping a precise military salute.

Dawn returned it and grinned back at her. Sobering suddenly, and all business again, she turned to Hicks.

"Stand your people down, Tech-sergeant," Dawn said. "Not you, though. _You_ need to Triple-S it and report to Main Drawing Room A1 for a briefing, ASAP."

Frowning, Hicks said, "Briefing? Not a _de_-briefing?"

"Nope," Dawn said, breaking out into a radiant smile. "Said what I meant, and meant what I said. _Briefing_. You are a _go_, Tech-sergeant."

Whoo-hee! Hicks gave her a crisp nod, not letting out the whoop that wanted to burst out from his suddenly tight throat. "Good enough, Commander. I'll be there with bells on."

"Your best Blacks will be fine, Hicks," Dawn said, her voice dry and her eyes crinkling at the corners. "The bells would be distracting."

Acknowledging the humor with a wink, Hicks turned to his people. "Aw right. Stand down, Harriers. Drop off your gear and call it a day. Fall out, you are dis-_missed!_"

Grinning, joking, and exchanging rude jokes and ruder comments, the rest of the team picked up equipment and headed off in various directions, jostling and elbowing each other. All of them paused briefly so that hard eyed Home Guard troopers with dogs could double check them for verisimilitude. Karelian Bear Dog crossbreeds this time, rather than wolfhounds. The Resistance had salvaged dogs of every breed possible after the hammer came down and the long night fell...

Cats, too, but cats were companions mostly, not guards. Only the big Savannahs with their Serval ancestry and the equally large Missouri Bobtails with their Golden Cat heritage seemed to share a dog's antipathy to Terminators. No one knew why, it just was.

Dawn and Jaime linked arms and headed off in their own direction, chattering to each other.

Hicks... Hicks just stood there a moment, nearly numb from the sudden wash of feeling sweeping through him.

Day-um. Just... damn.

Project Deliverance was a _go_.

Didn't _that_ just beat all.

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	2. Dark Powers Rising

**The Hell-er-Nator: Book I – **

**Chaos Machine**

_by Ironbear_

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_"Not allowed to add 'In accordance with the prophesy' to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me."_ – 213 Things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the United States Army

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**Chapter One: ****Dark Power****s**** Rising... **

_Monday, October 27, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Morning -_

For a Monday, _especially_ a Monday on a school day, Xander Harris wasn't in all that bad a mood, surprisingly. He had his two best buds with him, there didn't seem to be any supernatural horror about to pounce and eat their faces – for once – and all seemed well with the world.

Surprisingly, because in a lot of ways, he _still_ hadn't recovered from having a girl he'd really kind of liked crumble to dust and rot practically on his lips. Worse: a very pretty girl who had also almost seemed to really kind of like _him_, too. Ampata the Inca Mummy girl... he still had nightmares about that whole thing.

Scratch that. No '_almost_' about it. Ampata _had_ really kind of liked him. He was sure of it, which made it worse. She just hadn't liked him enough to not try and suck his soul and life energy out through his tonsils when it came right down to it. Not that he could really quite manage to hold that against her: people did some seriously freaksome things when they were facing certain death. He'd seen way too many variations of that in the past year.

Which was kind of depressing in and of itself.

No sixteen year old should _have_ to have seen _that_ many variations on the "Oh my gods we're all gonna die!" theme, in his opinion.

Anyway, compared to the Ampata thing, getting forcibly dressed up as a girl in a Frat hazing while trying to help rescue Buffy and Cordelia Chase from evil demon worshiping Frat Boys a couple of weeks ago was small change. Still, it was good for what little manliness reputation he had that – for once – Cordelia had kept her natural instinct to humiliate him in check and hadn't broadcast that around the school. She was probably saving it for a special occasion...

Still, no demon mummy girl nightmares for several days. No nightmares of being chased around a Frat House by undead clowns while dressed as a girl, either. All in all, a win-win sitch. And Halloween was coming up, which had to be just about his favorite holiday in the year.

Or at least it had been, before discovering that he lived on a Hellmouth, complete with extra servings of Hell. Probably meant there were going to be real ghoulies, goblins, and ghosties out and about, and they'd have to be out in it, slaying them.

They passed by a "Vote Cordelia Chase for Homecoming Princess!" poster on one wall, and Xander's head turned to study it as he went past. It had a large picture of Cordy wearing some sort of shiny looking gray, bare midriff workout outfit and sitting on a set of gymnastics bars, wearing one of her brightest Beauty Queen smiles. He almost had to laugh out loud at the "Vote Now! Vote Early! Vote Often!" across the bottom.

Pure Cordelia Chase. Accept no substitutes... although why you'd want a substitute, or even the _original_ for that matter, kind of escaped him.

The poster looked professionally done, complete to the little pockets at the bottom corners with Take One! Pictures. He'd be willing to bet they had the same "Vote for Cordy!" and "Vote now, early and often!" slogans printed on them, front and back.

Willow caught his gaze and followed it, smirking when she saw the poster. "Wow. Campaign early, campaign often," she said.

Xander wrenched his mind back from wherever it had gone, and gradually tuned Buffy and Willow back in. No need or desire to have them notice his mind was a million miles away from here, and ask him about it. A lot of the stuff in his mind these days wasn't something you shared with your buddies. Especially not girl buddies.

"Huh," Xander said, "Oh joy – it's our favorite time of year." He pointed to the sign up posters for the Annual Volunteer Halloween Escort Service all over the walls as well as they headed into the school.

"Oh, yeth," Willow said, rolling her eyes. "Duck season. Wabbit season. Rugrat season!"

"Heh. Tourist season is when it's ok to shoot them," Xander intoned. "Too bad that doesn't apply to the sign up committee."

Buffy gave them curious looks, and read the posters as they went by. "But I thought you two guys liked Halloween?"

"Oh, we do, we do," Willow said. "We just don't care for the," she made finger quotes, "Organized school approved Halloween activities."

"Ah."

The three of them came out of the cross hallway into the main school drag just in time to see Principal Troll, err, Snyder snag a sign up clipboard from one of the sign up tables and grab the nearest girl walking past him. Too late, unfortunately, to turn suddenly and duck back and go another direction, darn it.

"Hey!" the girl yelped as Snyder spun her around.

"Hey nothing," Snyder said, shoving the clipboard and pen at her. "You're volunteering."

"But I have to get to class... " she complained.

Snyder just shrugged and looked impatiently at her. They took advantage of his focus on his prey to slide past him, hopefully without being noticed. Xander glared and shook his head at the kid at the sign up table who looked up at him hopefully.

"Snyder must be in charge of the volunteer safety program for Halloween this year," Willow said.

"Yeah. And note his interesting take on the concept of 'volunteering'," Xander said, smirking.

Buffy waved at the posters as they came to a halt by Willow's locker. "What's the deal?" she said.

"Oh, every year, a bunch of little kids need people to take them trick-or-treating," Xander said, "Sign up and get your own pack of sugar-hyped little runts for the night."

"Yup," Willow said, working the combination on her lock. "Our very own Sunnydale High tradition."

"Yikes!" Buffy said, "I'll stick to vampires, thanks."

Buffy yelped again as a hand grabbed her shoulder from behind, and Xander looked past her to see Snyder with his clipboard. He sighed as Buffy spun to face the runty Principal.

"Miss Summers. Just the juvenile delinquent I've been looking for," Snyder said.

"Principal Snyder!" Buffy said, "Jeeze, you scared the He- uh, heck out of me."

Snyder smirked. "Halloween must be a big night for you. Tossing eggs, keying cars, bobbing for apples, one pathetic cry for help after another," he said, leading her towards the sign up table, "Well, not this year, Missy."

Xander and Willow followed, coming up to stand behind and to either side of Buffy.

Buffy sighed dramatically. "Gosh, I'd love to sign up, but I recently developed carpal tunnel syndrome, and can tragically no longer hold a flashlight," she said.

"Right," Snyder said. He picked up a pen and held the clipboard out to her. "The program starts at four, the children have to be back at six-thirty _sharp_. Don't be late and do _not_ get the kids back late unless you want detention until after Graduation. Assuming you make it that far."

Xander gave Buffy an amused and encouraging smirk. Her obvious reluctance and outrage was actually kind of funny. Willow just looked concerned, and frustrated.

Frowning, Buffy took the pen with obvious reluctance, and scribbled her name. She rolled her eyes, and said, "Fine. Can I go now?"

"Get to class," Snyder said agreeably. "Ah! _Not_ you two – stop right _there_," he added, looking at Xander and Willow.

Xander raised an eyebrow as Snyder held out pens to him and Willow. Buffy took the opportunity to give him back the amused smirk, in spades. She stuck her tongue out at him while Snyder had his back to her. He and Willow gave Snyder pleading looks that just _begged_ not to be put through this. To no avail, naturally...

Willow gave in first and took the pen, sighing.

"Oh, don't look so forlorn, Rosenberg," Snyder said, rolling his eyes. "Just think: you can put it on your transcripts as an extra curricular. And you – " he looked at Xander, "Need the extracurriculars. Assuming you can even spell the word."

"Extracurricular, K-A-T, extracurricular," Xander said, rolling his own eyes. He took the pen Snyder was holding out, and scrawled his own John Xander after Willow finished. "Fine. I'm all volunteered now. Volunteered, D-R-A-F-T-I-D. Volunteered."

"Ha ha," Snyder said, smirking at both of them. "You really should go into comedy after you fail to graduate. It might give you an alternative to line cook at Burger Hut."

"With such encouragement and such a sterling example as yourself, how can I fail, sir?" Xander said, his expression and voice sour.

"Hah again," Snyder said. "Hold up, Summers. This concerns you, too." Buffy stopped, giving him an inquiring look as she turned. "Costumes are _mandatory_. And nothing too trashy, either. I know how you kids like to dress."

"In clothing?" Buffy said, wearing her best innocent look.

Snyder was already turning to his next victim, err, volunteer, and ignored her. They all shrugged and started to head away posthaste, before he came up with anything else, until they saw who his next victim was...

"Ah, Miss Chase," Snyder said. "Just the person I wanted to see. Thank you so much for volunteering this year." He thrust a pen and the clipboard in Cordelia's direction. Her coterie of Cordettes scattered hastily to the four winds while Snyder was focused on their leader.

She stepped back hastily, holding up her hands as if to ward off something foul. "Eww! As if!" Cordelia said. "I'm so _not_ volunteering for duty."

"See? Cordelia knows the difference between 'volunteer' and 'draftee'," Xander remarked.

"Bet she can't spell it, though," Willow said. They smirked at each other and continued watching the little drama.

"I already tried the carpal tunnel defense," Buffy called over. "It failed dramatically."

"Oh, please," Cordelia said, smirking back at her as Snyder shot Buffy a dark look. "I can do _so_ much better."

"Oh? I can't wait," Snyder said, "I _quiver_ with anticipation." He gave the cheerleader an expectant look. "Amaze me."

"And, eww, on the quivering thing," Cordelia paused, looking ill for a moment, and then smiled brightly and said, "I have a _date_. And a _party_. And a _daddy_ who is on the school board and who gives, like, _tons_ of money to the alumni fund every year after Homecoming." Her smile broadened and took on definite toothpaste commercial overtones. Malicious ones. "Donations that _won't_ be, when he finds out how his daughter's entire Halloween was absolutely _ruined_ by our Principal."

Snyder froze for a moment, and then gave her a sour glare, pulling the clipboard and pen back. "Fine. Ruin your list of extracurriculars. See if I care."

"Wow. She's good," Buffy said, as Cordelia's smile brightened and she gave a slightly mocking half bow in their direction.

"I'd be jealous," Xander said, nodding, "But I'm too busy being in awe."

Willow nodded, and said, "I like the way she distracted the predator so the rest of the herd could escape." They headed off towards Home Room, by way of Buffy and Xander's lockers.

Buffy looked at her. "Way too much Discovery Channel, Will. We're not going to have to stage an intervention, are we?" Willow grinned at her, sticking her tongue out.

"I can't believe this," Xander complained, working at his combination. "We have to get dressed up and the whole deal?"

"Well," Willow said, frowning. "Snyder said costumes _were_ mandatory."

"Besides," Buffy said, looking at him, "Weren't you planning to costume all up anyway?"

"Well, yeah," Xander said, shrugging. "To go to the Bronze for the annual Halloween party and hang out, now that we're like, actual high school kids and can. _Not_ to haul around a bunch of sugar jazzed curtain climbers."

"You think _you've_ got it bad," Buffy said. "For me? _Great_. I was gonna stay in and veg. The one night a year things are supposed to be _quiet_ for me."

"Halloween quiet?" Xander blinked. "Oh, I figured it'd be a big old vamp scare-a-palooza," he said. He slammed his locker shut after taking out an armload of books, and they headed off.

"Not according to Giles. He swears that Halloween night is, like," she said, "Seriously dead for the undead." She opened the Home Room door for the others, and followed them in. "They stay in."

Xander grinned at her as they headed for seats at the back of the classroom. "Those wacky vampires! That's why I love 'em! They just keep you guessing!"

* * *

_Monday, October 27, 1997: Rural Jamaica, Early Afternoon – _

"Kendra?"

Kendra put down the sword she was sharpening as her Watcher's voice called out from the next room. "Yes?" She stood immediately and went to see what he required of her.

Dr. Samuel Zabuto, Watcher, turned his wheelchair from his desk to face her as she entered the house's research library. "Ah. Thank you," he said. "I was just about to go to you."

"No need," Kendra said. "What can I do for you, sir?" She clasped her hands behind her back, standing straight, and looking him in the eye, as she'd been taught from childhood.

"I've just finished running another set of auguries for the near future," Zabuto said, looking troubled.

"What do they say, sir?' Kendra frowned. Anything that caused her Watcher to look troubled couldn't possibly be good news. He hadn't looked this perturbed years ago when the doctors had informed him that his back was broken, and he'd probably never walk again, after the demon attack that had left him paralyzed.

"Apparently, there is to be some sort of Dark Power rising very soon in Southern California, at the site of the active Hellmouth," Dr. Zabuto stated.

"Sunnydale, sir?" Kendra frowned. When Zabuto nodded, she raised an eyebrow, and said, "Do the auguries inform of what sort of dark power?"

Both of them spoke in French, which was much easier for her than English or even her Watcher's native Swahili.

"No. They do not," he said. "Merely that it, whatever it is, will manifest fully upon the night of Samhain. What the American's celebrate as 'Halloween'."

"Hmm." Kendra frowned thoughtfully, considering. "I had thought that, for the most part, Samhain was a relatively inactive night for the supernatural, sir."

"It is, normally," Zabuto said, nodding. "However, as on Walpurgisnacht, it is a day when the boundaries between our world and the spirit realms are at their weakest. As such, it is often a favored night for _human_ practitioners wishing to raise something, or to cast dark rituals."

"Sunnydale, California, sir," Kendra said. "Is that not the home of the previous Slayer?"

"It is," Zabuto said, agreeing with her. "Or was, rather. Reports from the Council, as well as your own activation, indicate that she passed some months ago. However, her former Watcher, Rupert Giles, is still on station there," Zabuto added. Kendra nodded.

"What do you wish of me?" she said.

Zabuto sighed. "You're going to need to travel to the Hellmouth, obviously," he said. "We cannot allow something such as this to pass without having the active Slayer on hand."

Kendra nodded, feeling a sudden surge of excitement. Not only action, and solo action at that, but her first _major_ mission since being Called. She couldn't wait to show what she could do, and make her Watcher proud of her.

"I will pack a bag, and make ready for the journey," she said, controlling her voice and expression so as to not betray her anticipation.

Zabuto nodded. "I will get your Passport and documents from the lock box, and call to arrange your flight to California," he said. "And I will prepare a bank draft for you to cash to pay for your airline ticket as well as for your expenses."

Kendra nodded. She, of course, would _not_ waste the draft on anything so frivolous as an airline ticket. She figured she could get onto the plane and travel without being seen or stopped, without a ticket. A Slayer was _supposed_ to be resourceful, after all. The money could be put to far better use as expense money, if needed, for her travails in America.

But, of course, what her Watcher didn't know wouldn't concern him...

"Your instructions, sir?"

"Observe, investigate, and locate the source of the rising. Eliminate that source and prevent the rising if at all possible. You may need to, or wish to, make contact with Rupert Giles and avail yourself of his resources as needed," Zabuto said. He sighed, looking at her. "I wish that I could be with you on this, however... " he gestured at his useless legs.

Kendra nodded, attempting to not show that she was swallowing past a sudden lump in her throat, and a sudden tightness in her chest.

She would never, ever say such a thing, of course, but... the fact that Zabuto's injuries had left him unfit for active field duty did not displease her. As she looked at the older man that she had long ago come to consider more her father than her dimly and vaguely remembered actual male parent, she reflected that it would not bother her if Samuel Zabuto never ever put himself in harm's way again.

That was the Slayer's job. _Her_ job.

The Slayer fought. The Watcher watched, and recorded. And that was the way of things, and how it should be.

That the arrangement prevented her Watcher from coming to any further harm was irrelevant, of course.

A Slayer was above and beyond such personal feelings...

Nothing of this passed across her face, of course. Kendra would have been amazed and appalled if she had know just how transparent her emotions were, and just how easily Zabuto could read her.

All that she said, however, was, "I will go and make ready. And I will make you proud, sir."

She turned and left the room, heading back to her own quarters to begin finding and packing the few things she would need for the journey.

As she passed out of the room, she heard Zabuto say, softly and in Swahili, "I am _always_ proud, child," and she couldn't help the sudden glow that filled her.

* * *

_Monday, October 27, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Afternoon -_

"So, any idea what you're gonna go as, Xand?" Buffy asked as the trio headed into the school Lounge.

Xander shrugged. Not really a problem for him, at least not this year. He'd already planned ahead for the Bronze party, anyway.

"Oh, no worries," Xander said. "Just call me the Two-Dollar Costume King, baby." Buffy raised her eyebrows, and he elaborated. Willow just grinned, having already heard this... "I have some old fatigues and a camo undershirt from the Army Surplus store on Greenville. Plus my old surplus military boots. And some blank insignia and patches from the novelty place at the Mall." He grinned, and said, "All I need is a toy rifle and pistol, and ta da! Instant Soldier, just add Xander."

"Wow. I'm impressed," Buffy said. "You should write Hints for Heloise. How to costume on a shoestring."

Xander tossed his book pack onto a table, staking a claim, and gave her a short bow, smirking. "I don't like to blow my own horn, but... The Xand Man is just, well, _good_."

Buffy smirked back and looked at Willow. "And you? Hint hint – I'm obviously searching desperately for ideas."

"Ah. Hence the interrogation," Willow said, nodding. She shrugged, frowning slightly.

Xander threw an arm around her shoulder. "Will will do as she has for the past twelve years: dress as a ghost. It's a time hallowed Sunnydale tradition."

"Hey! I might not, either!" Willow threw his arm off, scowling at him. "I could do... do something, uh, daring this time!"

"Yeah. After all, it _is_ come as you aren't night," Buffy said.

Xander started to remark that Willow hadn't dressed as a ghost for the Cultural Dance, and look at how that nearly turned out, but bit the comment back. Too close to home, and too raw right now. For him, if not for Willow...

Buffy, apparently, didn't have the same reservations. "She didn't dress as an Eskimo Ghost for the Cultural Dance," she said. She also then apparently saw Xander's abruptly frozen expression, and gave him a rueful look. "And I think I'll shut up now, and just go sit down right here and eat worms or something."

"Good plan," Xander said, his voice sour. "I like it." He reached into his pocket, digging for change.

"I'll join you," Willow said, quietly. She took a seat on the couch next to Buffy as Xander dug out a handful of quarters and headed over to the row of vending machines.

Scowling inwardly, Xander stuffed a dollar's worth of change in the machine and pressed the button for a Root Beer.

Nothing happened.

He sighed and hit a different one this time, trying for an Orange. Nothing again. The machine gurgled quietly at him, and the light over the Orange went out. That was it.

Frustrated, he smacked the machine on the front, and then on the side. Tried the Dr. Pepper this time. Still nothing.

While he was considering his next strategy, an all too familiar voice bellowed, "Harris!" and meaty hand came down on his shoulder. Xander sighed, and turned, leaning back against the drink machine and folded his arms across his chest.

"Lar! Hey," he said, "You're lookin' all Cro-Mag as usual. What can I do you for?"

"You and Buffy, you're just friends, right?" Larry said, looking earnestly at him.

"I like to think of it less as a friendship," Xander said, smirking upward at the taller teen, "And more as a solid foundation for future bliss."

Larry's forehead creased. Xander figured he was trying to process the words with more than one syllable... he apparently failed, and said, "So, she, she's not your girlfriend?"

"Alas, no."

Larry glanced over his shoulder at Buffy and Willow as he moved to put himself between view of them and Xander. "So," he said, "Do you think she'd go out with me?" He faced Xander with Buffy to his back now.

"Well, Lar, that's a tough question to... " Xander shook his head slowly, and said, "No. Not a chance."

Larry blinked. "Why not? I heard some guys say she was fast."

"I hope you mean like the wind," Xander said, scowling.

Larry made a dismissive gesture and smirked. "Yeah, you _know_ what I mean." He did everything except the Monty Python nudge nudge wink wink routine to telegraph his meaning.

A blind idiot could have gotten it.

Xander scowled up at him. "That's my friend that you're talkin' about!"

"Oh, yeah?" Larry's smirk broadened. "Well, what're _you_ gonna do about it?"

With an internal sigh, Xander said, "I'm gonna do what _any_ man would do about it," he unfolded his arms and grabbed Larry by the shirt, silently reflecting on his imminent death by Cro-Magnon, "Somethin' damn manly!"

Larry grinned and laughed, knocking Xander's hands to the sides and grabbed him by the shirt with his left hand. He slowly balled his right hand into a fist and cocked it, drawing it back for an overhand punch.

The punch never fell.

A small hand caught Larry's wrist and the punch stopped dead in the air, several inches away from Xander's face.

Buffy hauled down on the wrist, pulling it behind his back and up, and slammed his head forward into the vending machine as Xander hastily stepped to the side.

A Diet Dr Pepper rolled into the slot with a clunk as Larry's head rebounded from the machine.

"Get gone," Buffy suggested, pulling Larry back from the machine and shoving him away. "Ooh! Diet," she said, noticing the soda. She reached down and grabbed the can, ignoring Larry.

"Freeze!" Snyder's voice cut across the lounge like a whip crack. Buffy froze with the can to her lips, raising an eyebrow. "I saw that whole thing from the doorway."

"You can see that far?" Xander said. "And that high up?"

Snyder glared at him, and then aimed an index finger at him. "You. Detention this afternoon," he said. Turning, he aimed it at Larry, and added, "You, detention also, for bullying."

"Hey!" Xander said, "What did I get detention for? Being a target?"

"Hey!" Larry echoed. "I can't have detention! I have football practice after school."

Snyder scowled, folding his arms across his chest. "You're right," he said, grudgingly. Larry's smirk died aborning as Snyder added, "Which means there's nothing preventing you from showing up for the Saturday Morning Breakfast Club Detention Group." Snyder's smile turned absolutely vicious. "I'm hosting it myself this weekend. Don't even _dream_ that it will be like the movie."

"But but... " Larry's protests wilted under Snyder's glare. Larry turned his own glare on Xander. "You and me, Harris. Count on it. Sooner or later, you won't have your bodyguard." He turned on his heel and lumbered off as Snyder turned his attention back to Xander.

"As long as you're not on school grounds or time, I don't care," Snyder told his retreating back. He turned to Xander again. "And you. Detention tomorrow afternoon _also_," Snyder said. "For not knowing when to keep your mouth shut."

Xander opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it when Snyder raised an eyebrow and looked at him expectantly. Giving him a satisfied nod, Snyder turned and stalked, or more like, strutted out of the lounge.

Sighing, Xander turned a sour expression on Buffy. "Do you know what you just did?" he asked.

"Saved you a dollar?" Buffy said, taking another drink of her soda.

"No, but thank you for playing," Xander said. "Considering that I was going for a Root Beer, and for drinking it myself. But... Larry was about to pummel me!"

"Oh, that? Forget about it!" Buffy turned to head back to the table, tossing, "No need to thank me."

"Don't worry, I wasn't planning to," Xander said. "And, oh, I'll forget about it." He followed her, adding, "In maybe fifteen, twenty years when my rep for being a sissy man finally fades!"

Buffy stopped and turned to face him. "Xander, don't you think you're... "

Xander interrupted her, saying, "A black eye heals, Buffy, but cowardice has an unlimited shelf life. Oh, thanks! Thanks a _lot_ for _your_ help."

Xander rolled his eyes as an equally familiar and caustic voice cut over their discussion.

"Wow. In a long string of pathetic moments, that was another one," Cordelia Chase said, her perfect eyebrow lifted and a smirk on those full lips.

"Cordelia," Xander said, "I should have known you were here by the way all the atmosphere left the room."

Cordelia's smirk broadened slightly and her other eyebrow went up. He could swear there was almost a look of appreciation in those hazel eyes.

"And on that note, I think I'll leave you to your impending verbal dismemberment," Buffy said.

"Hey, no, _now_ you can intervene," Xander said, hastily. "Cordelia being less in the male bully, and more in the demonic harpy category."

Cordelia choked, looking like she was swallowing a laugh, as Buffy turned away, waving it off. "No, no. You're on your own with this one," Buffy called back to them.

"Gee, thanks."

"Demonic harpy, to the vampire slayer, huh?" Cordelia said, lowering her voice so it wouldn't carry beyond the two of them and across the lounge. "That was actually... not _completely_ pathetic."

"I am so glad you approve," Xander said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "And you wanted?"

"Aside from witnessing your continuing social demise?" Cordelia turned to take a few steps to the soda machine. Xander trailed after, starting to say something about it being broken, and then caught himself and didn't. "And commenting on it?"

Cordelia fed quarters into the machine, punched for a Diet Pepsi, and tapped her foot as the machine gurgled for a moment and then spit one out into the slot. Figures. She reached down and picked it up, opening it to take a drink. "Actually, that's _more_ than enough to entertain me," Cordelia said, smirking at him.

"I always knew you were easily entertained," Xander said, sourly. For a day that started out all right, this one sure went down hill in a hurry.

Cordelia lowered her voice even farther, to a harsh whisper. "What in the _hell_ were you _thinking_," she said, "Dorksome? Larry will kill you!"

Xander blinked at her. "Uh... and you care, because?"

"I so don't!" Cordelia said, her eyes flashing at him. "_Get_ pounded into mush! But what _were_ you thinking?"

"Uh... " Xander wrenched his completely derailed mind back onto the tracks, or close enough. "I was thinking that I don't want to let guys like Larry think they can talk about my friends the way he was."

"Oh, jeeze. Machismo, much?" Cordelia said, her tone scathing. She rolled her eyes. "_Men_."

"And again, you care why?"

"Aside from the fact that Buffy has no idea how to run a subtle intervention, and like, zero understanding of the guy codes," Cordelia looked at him. "I don't, really. But you, like, _did_ save my life a few weeks ago with the Frankenstein Twins. I haven't forgotten that. Idiot."

Xander blinked again, feeling a slow grin start to spread across his lips. For a moment here, Cordelia was _almost_ starting to resemble the girl he'd grown up with in kindergarten and grade school. It was almost... kinda nice.

"Forget it," Xander said, waving it off. "I didn't do anything that needs paying back."

"As if!" Cordelia said, her eyes flashing again. "Get this _straight_, loser. I don't _owe_ people. _Especially_ not geeks and dorks!"

Her voice gradually went up on the last sentence until the 'geeks and dorks' could probably have been heard across the Quad outside. A few moments later he figured out why as Harmony's voice came from behind him.

"Geeks and dorks?" Harmony said, strolling up with the rest of Cordelia's posse trailing behind her like monstrous ducklings. "What. They need to spray again?" The rest of the Cordettes giggled obediently on cue.

All of them except for the new exchange student, Tamara, who just frowned slightly, first at the others, and then at Xander and Cordelia. And Aura Breckenridge, who laughed and scowled obediently at Xander, and then whose eyes narrowed slightly at Harmony.

"Oh, please," Cordelia said, stalking past him and bumping Xander out of her way with a hip. "Like there's a strong enough fumigator for the infestation we have around _here_."

"Harpy," Xander called after her.

"Lamoid!"

"Call girl."

"You wish! Like _you_ could afford me, Skater Punk."

"Naw. Chewing my arm off after doesn't appeal to me."

"Creep!"

"She-beast." Grinning, Xander sent a parting shot across Cordelia's stern as she swept out after the Cordettes. Really nice looking stern, too, he reflected, not for the first time...

Remembering Larry and his upcoming death by cro-mag killed both the grin and the pleasant fantasies about Cordelia's stern. Oh well... not like he hadn't been dealing with getting pounded on by jocks and bullies since, well, forever. Larry would probably have cooled off in a day or so.

Uh... make that a _week_ or so _past_ Saturday detention.

Xander reappraised the situation. He probably should avoid the jock until some time well after Homecoming. Maybe well after Thanksgiving, even. Crap. He was doomed.

* * *

.


	3. Intelligence Gathering

**Chapter Two: Intelligence Gathering...**

* * *

_Tuesday, October 28, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Afternoon -_

Buffy and Willow looked in through the round windows of the double library doors, peering to each side as far as they could see. Not spotting anything – or, more importantly, _anyone_ – they exchanged glances. Willow nodded at Buffy, and she took a deep breath and quietly opened the door.

Once inside, Buffy looked back to see Willow giving her an encouraging look through the glass.

Quietly, Buffy slipped up to the library counter and looked around. Not spotting Giles, she nodded to herself and began to head around the counter to Giles' office...

"Buffy!"

"Yeep!" Buffy yelped and spun around, to see Giles straightening up inside the rare book cage with a handful of books.

"Excellent!" Giles said, beaming at her.

"Nothing! Hi!" Buffy said. She gave him a small wave, and a bright smile that felt weaker than she hoped it looked.

"Hrmm?" Giles said. He shook his head slightly, and continued, "Yes, I-I just wanted to talk to you about tomorrow night. As it should be, uh, calm, you might work on some new battle techniques with me."

"You're beginning to scare me, Giles," Buffy said, frowning, "You really need to have some fun."

Giles looked down at the books he held, and Buffy quickly looked past him, waving to Willow to come in. She pointed urgently at Giles' office as Willow's eyes widened in alarm. Shaking her head frantically, Willow mouthed 'No!' through the glass.

Buffy yanked her hand back to her head and pretended to be straightening her hair as Giles looked up from his burden.

"You know," she said, moving to one side so that he'd have to turn to face her, "There's this place you can go, right, and you sit in the dark, and there are these moving pictures, right, and the pictures tell a story... "

"Yes, yes, ha, ha, very droll," Giles said.

Willow sighed dramatically through the glass, and then opened the door just enough to slip in through it. She hunched and slipped quietly past them as Buffy did her best to hold Giles' attention.

"I- I'll have you know that I have very, uh, many relaxing hobbies," Giles said, looking affronted.

"Oh? Such as?"

"Well, um..."

Buffy silently mouthed 'hurry!' to Willow to goad her, giving her a small, sharp gesture from down by her side. Willow scowled back, but picked up speed slightly.

Speed as in, from, like, snail to turtle...

"I enjoy cross-referencing," Giles said, rolling his eyes.

"Wow," Buffy said. "Do you stuff your own shirts, or do you send them out?" Grabbing a book from the stack he was about to take to his office, Buffy walked around him to draw his view away from his office door. "So! How come Halloween is such a big yawner? I mean, do the demons just hate how commercial it's become?" She started to leaf through the book.

Giles said, putting his books down, "Um, it's interesting, ac... _Not_, I suspect, to you." He took the book away from her, ignoring her outraged pout. "What is it you're after?"

Buffy shrugged, hoping desperately that Willow had made it into the office. "Of course, it's of interest to me!" she said. "I'm the Slayer. I need to know these things. You can't keep me in the dark any longer."

Giles picked up the stack of books again, shaking his head, and started to turn to his office.

"Hey!" Buffy said, "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

"I really don't have time for these games, Buffy," Giles said, sighing.

"Ms. Calendar said you were a babe," Buffy said, hoping she didn't sound nearly as desperate as she was afraid she did. Geeze... was the man hard to distract, or what?

Willow looked back from the office door, giving Buffy a look and shaking her head. She rolled her eyes for emphasis. Buffy made sharp little 'go on, go on!' waves from by her hip, resisting the urge to scowl ferociously at the currently exasperating little red head.

Giles blinked at her, removing his glasses. "She said _what?_"

Buffy took a deep breath before plunging in desperately. She was going to strangle Willow... "Well, I overheard her say that you were a... h-hunk of burning... uh, something or other. So," Buffy said, exhaling, "Whaddaya think of that?"

"Uh, I... " Giles said, blinking and beginning to clean his glasses. He exhaled. "I don't, um, uh... A burning hunk of what?

Buffy shrugged. "Look. You know how disgusting it is for me to even contemplate you grownups having smoochies," she said. Looking as surreptitiously past Giles' shoulder as she could, she saw Willow come out of the office – _finally_ – with a couple of diaries, and added, "but I think you should go for it."

"Buffy," Giles said, "I appreciate your interest, but..."

Willow hurried past the counter, giving Buffy a thumbs up gesture and a weak smile.

"But I've overstepped my bounds. It's none of my business, you know," Buffy said, stammering, "And, what was I thinking? My God! Shame," she babbled as she watched Willow go out the door from the corners of her eyes, "_Shame_ on me! I gotta go."

Ducking her head, she quickly walked past a bemused looking Giles and out after Willow.

"Yikes!" Willow said. "I am never, ever going to do that again."

"Well, as a partner in crime, you leave a bit to be desired, Louise," Buffy said, glaring at her. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and slumped against the wall outside the library. "Hoo boy."

"Right, Thelma," Willow said, rolling her eyes. "I wasn't even supposed to be _in_ there! You should be glad I was able to improvise."

"Oh, I am, I am, believe me," Buffy said, grinning. "I just thought I was going to run out of earnest babble before you got finished," she added. "I lack your natural talent for it."

"Oh, no, I think you do fine," Willow said, giggling. "And, oh, look: I have a couple of journals covering Angel's early period... hopefully including when he was alive even."

"Oh, good. I'd hate to think that was a complete waste," Buffy said. "Where should we go with these?"

"Uh... girls bathroom?"

"Lead on, Louise."

* * *

A short time later, in the girls bathroom, Buffy scowled down at the illustration in the book she was browsing through.

She let out a breath, feeling frustrated. "Musta been wonderful. Put on some fantabulous gown and go to a ball like a princess, and have horses and servants, and yet more gowns."

Willow nodded. "Yeah. Still, I think I prefer being able to vote," she said. Buffy raised her eyebrows and smiled "Or- or I will when I can vote," Willow said, smiling back. "You say that one's from the late late 1700's?"

"Uh huh. Mid. The entry is dated 1745," Buffy said, nodding.

"This one is from a few years later when Angel was in his early twenties," Willow said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah... " Willow frowned down at the entry, and said, "The Watcher here says that he was a 'carouser, a womanizer, a heavy drinker, and a cad and a bounder' as a young man. Oh – a-and a general ne'er do well. Which, uh, may have led to his siring in 1753 by Darla, it says, as she was believed to have been an, uh, noted, um... " Willow broke off, blushing furiously.

"Huh. _That_ doesn't sound good... " Buffy said, frowning. "An um, noted what?" She leaned over to peer at the diary upside down. Willow sighed and obligingly turned it a bit so she could read it. "Oh. One of _those_... "

"Yeah. Quote-Lady-end quote of the Evening, and not in the blood sucking sense," Willow's scowl deepened. "Maybe you should forget about Miss Tiny Waist and the whole noble woman thing. M-maybe you should try the, uh, eighteenth century tavern wench look."

"Huh? You think?" Buffy looked up at her, blinking. "Or possibly vampire hooker, maybe?"

"Well, uh, I don't know a lot about eighteenth century European history," Willow said, "But I really don't think you're going to find a lot of classy noblewomen hanging out in the kind of taverns where uh," she started turning red again, "uh, womanizing cads, bounders, and drunken ne'er do wells go carousing."

Buffy gave her a blank look. "What _is_ a bounder, anyway?"

"I-it really has nothing to do with what it sounds like," Willow began, when the door opened and Cordelia came sweeping in.

"Oh, _there_ you are," Cordelia said, riveting Buffy with an intense look. "Not that I was looking for you, but, it's–" she broke off as Willow and Buffy hastily shut the watcher's diaries. "Uh, oh crap. Now we're taking research into the girl's _bathrooms_? Is the world ending _again_?"

"No, not that I'm aware of," Buffy said, smiling brightly. "But we can always hope."

"Oh. Ok. And... what-_ever_," Cordelia said, tossing her hair. "Do let me know if it's going to end before Halloween night so I can reschedule my date with Owen, ok?"

"All right," Buffy said, bemused. "And, uh, Owen?" She blinked, and said, "You're dating Owen now?"

"Well, yeah," Cordelia said, "I mean, just because you and he didn't work, isn't any reason someone else shouldn't take him for a test drive, right?"

"Oh, please," Buffy said, waving her on. ""Drive on. be my guest. Drive away in him, if you want." She frowned, running that back through her mind for a sound check, and shrugged. Oh well. Grammar, not her thing.

Apparently, on some days, English, not her thing... Just ask Giles. Good thing it wasn't her native language or anything.

"I will," Cordelia said, turning to the mirror and taking out her makeup case. "Like I need your permission."

"But... " Willow frowned, and said, "I thought you were dating Devon?"

"Oh, please, Devon's last week," Cordelia said. "If he thinks he can pull a no show on _me_ just because he's in a band? Pshh! Not."

"Uh, ok," Willow said. She exchanged looks and eye rolls with Buffy past the oblivious cheerleader.

"So, Buffy. You ran off last night and left poor little Angel all by his lonesome. But I did everything I could to comfort him," Cordelia said, smirking at Buffy via the mirror.

Buffy resisted the urge to growl at her. "I'll just bet you did." She couldn't help gritting her teeth slightly, regardless.

Cordelia said, taking out her blush and lipstick, "So, what's his story anyway? I mean, I never see him around." She began touching up her makeup.

"Not during the day, anyway," Willow said.

"Oh, please. Don't tell me he still lives at home," Cordelia said. "Like, what, he has to wait for his dad to get back before he can take the car?" She put the blush away and picked up the lip gloss, eying her lips critically.

"Cordelia," Buffy said, smiling, "I think his parents have been dead for a couple of hundred years. At least."

Cordelia, nodded, beginning to touch up her lip gloss. "Oh, good. I mean... " she said. Then she blinked and turned to face them, and said, "What?"

Buffy shrugged. "Angel's a vampire. I thought you knew."

Cordelia huffed and turned back to the mirror. "Oh, he's a vampire," she said, putting away the lip gloss and picking up her purse. "Of course! But the cuddly kind. Like a Care bear with fangs?"

Willow shrugged as well, and said, "It's true."

Cordelia shook her head and stepped over to them, glaring. "You know what I think?" She folded her arms across her chest. "I just think you're trying to scare me off 'cause you're afraid of the competition," she said. "Look, Buffy, _you_ may be hot stuff when it comes to demonology or whatever, but when it comes to dating, _I'm_ the Slayer."

"Fine, whatever," Buffy said, giving a casual flip of the hand. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

"What ever," Cordelia said. She rolled her eyes and stalked out of the bathroom, Buffy watching her leave with a slight frown.

"So... " Buffy said, turning back to Willow. "Noblewoman, or vampire bar slut?"

* * *

Xander stepped out of the lunchroom, in preparation for heading to the student lounge. He looked carefully both ways for Larry's and other Neanderthals before stepping out. Kind of like checking the street for traffic before jaywalking, he reflected.

You could become roadkill from both.

He should have also been checking for Unidentified Cheer-leading Objects...

"Aha! Just the Dork I was looking for," Cordelia Chase said, stepping into his path.

"Me?" Xander blinked at her, startled.

Cordelia huffed, folding her arms over her chest and ruining the view. "Well, duh! How many _other_ dorks do you know, anyway?" She flipped a hand at him, tossing her head, "And _don't_ bother answering that. I don't _even_ want to know."

"Uh, ok," Xander said, nodding agreeably.

Cordelia grabbed him by the strap of his book pack and began dragging him down the hall after her, after looking in all directions just as carefully as Xander had a few minutes earlier. Reaching an empty classroom, she opened the door and hauled him in after.

"Help! Help! I'm being kidnapped by cheerleaders!" Xander said, "Oh, help!"

"Oh, shut up, cry baby," Cordelia said, pushing him toward the desk. "You should _be_ so lucky. _Sit_."

He sat, and she took up the other corner of the desk, as far away from him as she could get, and folded her arms again, glaring at him. _Under_ her breasts this time, thank you God.

And her position did cause her short skirt to ride up, giving him a great view of her legs almost all the way to her underwear, so he decided he couldn't complain _too_ much...

"Uh... I don't _remember_ doing anything to piss you off recently," Xander said, taking mental snapshots for later reference on autopilot, "But going by that glare, I'm guessing I forgot something?"

"Oh, please. Believe me, if you'd pissed me off, you'd know about it right then," Cordelia said.

"Ah. Kinda what I figured." Xander folded his own arms over his chest and glared back. "So. Not that this isn't fun, because it isn't, but you dragged me in here because... ?"

"Duh. So no one would _see_ us talking, of course," Cordelia said, rolling her eyes.

"Ah. Of course. Mystery cleared. And we're talking because?" Xander raised an eyebrow at her.

"I was in the girl's bathroom just now... " Cordelia began...

"Ah. And thank you for that timely personal hygiene update," Xander said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bleach the mental images out of my brain."

Cordelia rolled her eyes at him again. She crossed her legs, causing the already hiked up skirt to ride up even higher and giving him a brief flash of red at her crotch.

"Oh, shut up, _jerk_." Cordelia huffed, and blew hair from her eyes, "As I was saying," she started... Xander propped his chin in one hand and put on his best 'fake interested' expression. She rolled her eyes again, but he was certain he saw a tiny smile starting to twitch at the corner of her lips. "As I was _saying_, jerk-off, I was in the second floor girl's bathroom, and Buffy and Willow were in there with a couple of Giles' Watcher Diaries... "

"Research? In the _bathroom_?" Xander blinked. "Is the world ending and no one told me?"

"Hah! What I said!" Cordelia said, smirking. "But no. They shut the books real fast when I came in, but not before I saw what they were looking at," she said. Xander made a go on gesture, and she huffed at him again and continued, "And it looked like they were doing research into eighteen hundreds women for some reason. And I could have sworn I saw Angel's name on one page before Buffy shut it."

Xander nodded, feeling his shoulders relax.

"And you so don't look surprised, dork," Cordelia said, narrowing her eyes, "_Why_ don't you look surprised?"

"Buffy. Angel fixation. Watcher's diary," Xander said, shrugging. "Where _else_ is she going to go for information on her undead honey?" The last word practically dripped sarcasm.

"And why would... " Cordelia held up a hand in a stop gesture. "Wait. Stop. Ok, so tell me: is Angel _really_ a vampire like Buffy and Willow tried to tell me he was?"

"Yes, Cordy," Xander said, rolling his eyes. "Angel really is a vampire. Can I go now?"

"What? Wait – don't you _dare_ move," Cordelia said, glaring at him. "Are you for real? You're not, like, lying to me? Or in on whatever it is with Buffy and Willow? Because you _so_ would do that!" She leaned back, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, giving him another flash of her underwear.

Wow. Red lacies.

"No, Cordy, I'm not pranking you with Buffy and Will," Xander said. "Although, I _really_ wish I had thought of that – it has serious possibilities."

She glared at him, and he put his hands up hastily in a placating gesture. "Yes, Angel is a vampire. No Buffy, Will, and I are not pranking you."

"Crap." Cordelia said, slumping. "You're really _not_ lying to me, are you."

"Cordelia... " Xander had a dozen smart ass comments on the tip of his tongue, but Cordelia suddenly looked so dejected that he just couldn't. "No. You've known me since we were five, Cordy. Have I _ever_ lied to you about anything serious? Or anything life and death important?"

"Well, until _Buffy_ showed up and we started having problems with vampires, demons, and mid life crisis witches, we didn't _have_ a lot of life and death things for you _to_ lie about."

"Point."

"Dammit," Cordelia said. She studied his face for a long moment, biting at her lower lip, before nodding finally. "Ok. Right. And, rats. I mean... I _finally_ meet an older guy who's like, _made_ of salty goodness, and he's dead. Wonderful."

"Yeah. Life sucks and then you almost date the undead," Xander said, grinning. After a moment, Cordelia quit glaring at him and snickered. "Not, like, that you really had much of a chance of _dating_ Angel. He's pretty hung up on the blonde vampire slayer, from what I've seen."

"Right. Wait... " Cordelia blinked at him. "And how does that work? Aren't we supposed to _stake_ vampires?"

"Angel. Exception," Xander said, deadpan. He spread his hands. "Only vampire in the world with a soul, yata yata, good guy, yata yata, sits on his ass while the girl he supposedly loves marches to her doom, yata yata..."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Xander said. "If I sound bitter, it's only because I am."

"Oh, right," Cordelia said, tossing her hair at him. "Like _you_ were going to date Buffy."

"Right. Thank you for that uplifting reminder, Cordy. Any more ego destroying tidbits you want to drop on me? Or would you prefer an anvil?"

"Oh... you know what I mean," she gave him a vague wave of the hand, still biting at her lower lip. For once, she didn't seem like she was trying to snark on him. Wonder of wonders. "You'd have better luck dating _me_."

That actually rocked Xander metaphorically back on his heels for a minute and left him speechless.

He shook the mental static out of his brain, and plunged onward, desperately trying to stay on the conversational track, such as it was... "Yeah. And, for the record, I share your opinion of the whole vampire slayer, vampire dater thing," Xander said, smirking at her. They both exchanged looks and shudders.

"Eww." Cordelia shook her head. Making a face, she uncrossed her legs again, putting one foot down on the floor, "And how does that work, again? No heartbeat – "

"And I thought you needed blood flow to make, like, uh, _some_ things rise from their little coffins," Xander said, smirking. His eyes automatically tracked down like twin radar installations, and up the long tanned thighs to the patch of red lacy at their junction.

Cordelia froze with her mouth open and her leg down, giving him another, longer up-skirt shot, and stared at him. "And, eww. Thank you for that mental image, Pervert."

"You're quite welcome," Xander said graciously. Was the least he could do for the free peep show, really. "Brain bleach?"

"Ta much. Quart sized, please. To go." She she smirked and slid off the end of the desk, standing. "Well, thanks, I guess." She didn't _sound_ very grateful, but he guessed he could let that one pass.

"No problem," Xander said. A thought struck him, and he looked at her suspiciously. "And, ok, so, why did you decide to ask _me_ for confirmation that Captain Pulseless is of the not breathing set?"

"What. Like, who _else_ am I going to ask? Harmony?" Cordelia snickered. "_She_ probably thinks vampires are the guys who referee baseball games."

"Hah." Xander shook his head, laughing. "Giles?"

"Right. I can see that, really," Cordelia said, "Not. By the time he finished hemming and hawing and cleaning his glasses, we'd have graduated all ready." They exchanged grins. "Well, I better slip out before anyone sees us, like, _talking_ or anything."

"Oh? And what are you going to tell them if they do?"

"Duh. That you dragged me in here so you could ask me to Homecoming, and complete your perfect lose-lose record by getting shot down," Cordelia said. "What else?"

"Ah. Just so long as you had a plan."

Xander watched her leave, shaking his head. Some days...

Some days, it just didn't pay to chew through the straps and get out of bed. Others, you just never knew what was going to happen.

Oh well. At least now he had visuals of Cordy's red lacy underwear and very high upper thighs for the nightly porno movie...

* * *

.


	4. Comparison Shopping

**Chapter Three: Comparison Shopping... **

_Wednesday, October 29, 1997: Kostume Kauldron at Ridgeview Mall, Late Afternoon -_

"Grrf. I can not _believe_ they lost my costume reservation at Party Town," Cordelia said.

"It happened, get over it," Aura said. She spotted an outfit, and grabbed it. "Ooh, looky," she said, holding the jaguar print body suit up against herself.

"Hey! That's _almost_ just like the one I had on reservation," Cordelia exclaimed. "Crap."

"Sorry," Aura said, dripping insincerity. "Snooze, you lose, girlfriend." She beamed at the other girl, her best friend, and reached over to pick up the matching boots and fishnets for the outfit. "It's even in my size."

"Yeah yeah yeah, bite me," Cordelia said. She looked over the remaining cat costumes, her eye expertly scanning size tags and labels... "Aha! This might do," she said, picking up a hanger with a tiger skin outfit to examine.

"Crap," Harmony said, pouting. "I had my eye on that one." She stamped her foot, huffing.

"Sorry," Cordelia said. "As the girl said: snooze, you lose. Get over it." She grinned at the blonde girl, and added, "At this late date? It's every Cordette for herself."

"Whatever happened to one for all, and all for one?" Tamara said, browsing the racks with a distracted expression.

"Went out in fourth grade when Jesse shot Harmony in the butt while we were playing Three Musketeers," Aura said, exchanging smirks with Cordelia. Angelique and Aphrodesia snickered.

"Ooh... " Harmony crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at them. "We said we were never going to speak of that."

"We did?" Cordelia and Aura said, in, err, harmony.

"You two are just mean," Tamara said, shaking her head.

"It's a knack," Cordelia said, still examining her find.

It was a full body tiger striped suit, with leather panels down the legs and a leather waist cincher style bodice piece, rather than the leotard and hose jaguar patterned suit Aura had grabbed. But... real leather, not faux. And at _these_ prices, Cordelia thought, examining the tag, it should be. It also had upper arm length tiger stripe cloth and leather fingerless gloves to match the legs... The suit's chest, gloves, and the leather side and leg panels were artfully slashed to show skin and cleavage, but without being _too_ revealing.

Just enough to catch the eye and hold it, and make the owner of the eyes want to see more.

She smirked to herself. Should have Owen drooling. And maybe even make Devon wish he wasn't a complete waste of useable air. And it was actually both racier, sexier, and pricier than the one she'd had reserved.

A three-fer. Score.

Lishanne, Aphrodesia, Angelique, Deirdre, and Nicolette all had found outfits of varying sexiness and daring that they seemed to like. Tamara was still browsing the racks, frowning at the available choices. Harmony was still browsing, or pretending to, and pouting.

"Not seeing anything you like?" Cordelia asked Tamara.

"Naw," Tam said. The dark skinned exchange student waved at the rack, and then at the other Cordettes. "Not that you guys haven't already grabbed up, and not anything I really care for in my size."

Cordelia nodded, thinking the problem over.

Kostume Kauldron was expensive enough to be relatively exclusive, which meant that it wasn't shopped out like a lot of stores would be this close to Halloween. But 'relatively', was only, well, relative. There were enough people in the same income and tax bracket as her parents and those of the rest of the Cordettes in Sunnydale and Old Carpinteria that the expense didn't shy off _everyone_.

Joy and the rest of the Cheer-leading squad had set their eyes on a pirate theme to match the jocks. Cordelia had decided on a cat theme for herself and the Cordettes. Just so as to make the point of setting her _own_ style, not following that of the captain of the Cheer-leading Squad.

On the other hand, next to wearing a knock off and trying to pass it off as an original, the only really unforgivable fashion offense was wearing an identical outfit to another Cordette. Fine and cute for _twins_, maybe. _Not_ for adults and school trend setters.

"Well," Cordelia said, shrugging. "I guess you _could_ look over the other costumes and see if anything catches your eye. We have enough felines to hold up the theme, at least."

"Suits," Tamara said. "Hey – I'm feeling awful patriotic, all of a sudden," she stated, looking at a rack of racy army girl outfits. She threw Cordelia a grin, adding, "Even if I'm not American."

"Hey! If _she_ doesn't have to dress like a cat," Harmony said, folding her arms again and glaring, "I won't either."

"Fine," Cordelia said. "Suit yourself."

"Fine. I will!" Harmony said. She glared once more at Cordelia and Aura, and _hm__m__phed_ and added, "I think I'll go check out that new place," before stalking off like, well, an affronted cat.

"Jeeze. What crawled up Harmony's butt?" Aphrodesia said. She had managed to locate a frisky looking black, short skirted outfit with leopard ears and trim, and seemed happy with it.

"She found a sale on Pines at Stacy's and thought it was _spines_ at _Macy's_?" Aura said, "So she bought two."

"Oh, too _too_ cruel, girlfriend," Lishanne said, shaking her head.

"But so very apt," Nicolette said.

"Upward mobility impairment," Cordelia said. "She wants to be the head Cordette, and it's _so_ not happening."

"Ah. Like _that_ will happen," Aphrodesia said. "Does so explain the snit, though."

"Yup. There's only room for one _me_ at the top," Cordelia said. "And _I'm_ unique."

"And _I'm_ the only one allowed to have a spine in this outfit," Aura said.

"It's important that _you_ believe that," Cordelia said. She and Aura exchanged smirks, and then broke out laughing.

Tamara came back carrying a pair of costume sized boxes, with a smaller one on top of them. "All right."

"Find something?"

"Oh yeah," Tam said. "I'll get both of these, and the props set, and combine parts for a real knockout effect."

"Cool. Let's pay up and go hit the food court," Cordelia said. "I'm starving."

* * *

_Wednesday, October 29, 1997: Ethan's Costume Emporium, Early Evening – _

Xander shook his head as he wandered past Buffy and Willow at the women's deluxe costume aisle. They were in the middle of a lively debate over the merits of Princess and noblewoman outfits versus tavern wench costumes.

Said debate and merits apparently centered on which would _Angel_ like better: a noblewoman from his era, a princess, or a tavern girl.

Sheesh.

"I've always kind of favored women in spandex, myself," Xander remarked, pausing to watch the debate.

"You would," Willow said, smirking at him.

"Luckily, I'm _not_ shopping for the teenage male super-heroine fan demographic," Buffy said. "No offense." She picked up a plastic jack-o-lantern off a shelf, and put it back hastily as it lit up, began shaking in her hands, and screamed.

"None taken," Xander said, dryly.

"Hey, look, Xand," Buffy said, "I'm _really_ sorry about the other afternoon."

Xander held up his hands, crossing his fingers at her in a warding gesture. "Do you mind, Buffy? I'm trying to repress."

"You _do_ know that crosses only work on vampires, right? Not vampire _slayers_?" Buffy said, laughing. Xander looked at his finger cross, shook it, and sighed.

"Rats. There goes my best shot," he said, grinning.

"Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled," she said. She propped her chin up on the end of his shoulder and made a pouting face, looking up at him. "Fwends again?"

Xander rolled his eyes down at her. "Thank you. You're a real pal. The bestest evah," he said, and Buffy smiled up at him. "Okay, y'know, actually I think I could've t..."

"Ooh! Look at this!" Willow said.

Buffy shot over to where Willow was standing so fast she practically left a cartoon vapor trail.

"... aken him with a bit of luck," Xander finished. "Hello! That was our touching reconciliation moment there. And... it's gone." He shook his head again, smiling ruefully, and headed over to the 'Parts & Pieces' aisle.

"I'm sorry... " Buffy said, distractedly. "It's just... "

Xander paused an aisle over from the bin he was aiming for to let a jostling, laughing, giggling and mock shoving gang of jocks and jockettes all carrying swashbuckling pirate outfits and accoutrements go past...

... just in time to watch Billy Zane, the little ten year old from next door to him snag what looked to be the very last military style rifle in the 'Parts & Pieces Weapons! 50% Off!' barrel.

"Well... crap," Xander said, watching his finishing touch for his two-dollar costume run off toward mom, making machine gun noises.

Sighing deeply, he went over and looked in the barrel anyway. Yup. Not a single M16, M1, fake Thompson, or Hk left in the entire wide barrel. Just a huge shotgun looking weapon that vaguely resembled a SPAS-12 auto shotgun, a police riot gun, and what looked like a two-thirds scale John Wayne style big loop lever action Winchester.

He picked up the fake SPAS-12 to examine, scowling. From down the aisle a bit he heard Larry's unmistakable voice boom out.

"Hey! Did you guys grab _every_ last single pirate outfit in the _store_? Sheesh."

"Hey, Lar," Gage said, sounding like he was laughing. "Shoulda been here earlier, man."

"Ha ha. Very funny – you _knew_ I had to stay late at practice."

"Snooze you lose, Larry," John Lee Walker told him, full of mock sympathy. There was a slapping sound as the other jock clapped Larry on a shoulder. "Best of luck, though."

Xander thought, briefly, of taking advantage of the ruckus and distraction to duck back down the aisle and over a couple. And... rejected the idea.

He wasn't going to play hide and seek with Larry between the aisles, trying to avoid being spotted. Not in a public place.

"Harris!" Larry boomed out as he apparently spotted Xander. "Man, you've got some nerve."

"Huh? Nerve for what, Lar? Shopping?" Xander gave Larry his best innocent look.

"_You_ know what for," Larry said. He reached out to give Xander a shove, then paused, his eyes going around the store to play spot the Buffy. Xander couldn't help but smirk when he noticed that and saw Larry making sure Buffy was occupied with her Deadboy Getter before finishing the motion.

The smirk was probably a touch too far, Xander reflected. Larry's scowl deepened, and he shoved Xander's shoulder, hard enough to push him back a step before cocking his other fist and drawing it back.

"There will be _no_ rough housing inside of my shop, gentlemen," a cultured and very British sounding voice stated. Larry's fist stopped in its tracks, hanging just even with Larry's shoulder.

The owner of the voice came around the end of the aisle, a slender man of around forty or so, with a mobile and expressive looking face. "Believe me. I shall have _no_ qualms whatsoever about ejecting the _instigator_ of the altercation."

Apparently, the emphasis on 'instigator' was no more lost on Larry than it was on Xander. He brought the fist down and plastered a big, cheerful smile on his face.

"Rough housing? Naw, man," Larry said. "Just greeting an old _friend_." He gave Xander a light, friendly 'hey there buddy' tap on the shoulder with the fist he'd been about to use to turn Xander's face into mush.

Of course, Larry's idea of a light, friendly tap made Xander's entire left arm go numb from the shoulder down. He resisted the pained urge to yelp loudly and drop the toy shotgun so that he could rub the injured area.

Instead, Xander pasted a broad, fake, lopsided grin on his face and directed it at the storekeeper. "Oh yeah. Larry was just saying hello before he went off _elsewhere_ in the store to shop, _weren't_ you, Larry?"

"Huh?" Larry blinked at him, and then nodded vigorously. Apparently he was having an _on_ day where he could get subtlety as long as it was delivered with an anvil. "Oh, yeah, right. I was. See ya, Xan." Larry turned the big plastic grin on Xander and turned to lumber down the aisle past the storekeeper.

"Do let me know should you require any assistance with your shopping," the storekeeper said, watching Larry go elsewhere. He shook his head, rolling his eyes, and then turned back to Xander. "Well, as long as you're satisfied, I am," he said. "Although, I would be happy to eject the cretin if you'd rather?"

"Oh, naw," Xander said, shaking his head. "Really don't need to do that." He felt the pins and needles sensation of his arm waking up, and resisted the urge to rub at it, again.

Actually, having the store manager eject Larry was the _last_ thing he needed. He was already in deep enough with the huge football player. Larry didn't need any reason to add interest in on the pounding he was going to eventually lay on Xander's ass.

"Well, if you're quite certain," the proprietor said. "By the way, Ethan Rayne," he held out his hand, "And welcome to my humble store."

"Ah, thanks?" Xander said, taking the hand and shaking it, after clumsily transferring the shotgun to his now functional left hand. The man looked and sounded a bit smarmy, but hey – anyone who could roll their eyes at Larry and recognize him for a cretin couldn't be _all_ bad. "And, uh, Xander Harris."

"I truly detest bullies and thugs," Ethan said. "If you're certain you're all right with things, then, perhaps, is there anything I can help you with? Are you finding everything you require?"

"Ah, yeah? Kinda," Xander said. "Well... uh, maybe if you have any more military style single rifles? Your parts bin there is out of them."

"Ah, no, sorry," Ethan said, shaking his head. "I'm afraid that those were the last of the single pieces there. I do have more weapons behind the counter, of the air soft and replica variety, but all the rest are part and parcel with various costumes."

"Ah. Rats," Xander said, shrugging. "Yeah, thanks, but I'm pretty sure I can't afford any of the behind the counter stuff. And a full costume is out of the price range entirely."

"Hrmm." Ethan looked at him carefully, and then glanced in the direction Larry had taken over to browse the movie and television selections of costumes. "I do really hate to see a customer go away less than satisfied. Especially one who has already had a, shall we say, less than stellar experience in my establishment. Why don't we say... half off of anything in the store, including rentals, and I'll throw in the loose prop you're holding free of charge."

Xander blinked, running that statement through his Giles to English to American filter. Unless he was mistaken, the Englishman had just said that Xander could get a fifty percent discount on _anything_, just for getting smacked in the shoulder by Larry. And a free prop. Cool.

He could _definitely_ live with that.

"Sure, why not?" Xander said. "At least I can browse around, and look at the stuff in the behind the counter guns?"

"Of course you can," Ethan said. "Walk right this way, please." He put out an arm to herd Xander toward the front, _without_ touching him, and gestured him to the counters.

"If I _could_ walk that way, I wouldn't _need_ talcum powder," Xander said, smirking.

Ethan stared at him, then blinked and started laughing. "Oh, my. A fellow fan of the classics."

"Oh, definitely," Xander said. "There's _no_ comedy like _old_ comedy. And thank gods for late night cable."

"Quite," Ethan said, smiling. "Let's see... what exactly were you shooting for, do pardon the pun, in a costume?"

"Soldier, generic USA," Xander said, shrugging. "I have some surplus fatigues at home, a few do it yourself patches and insignia, and I was just needing a prop to round things out. Maybe a couple of accessories, if you have any web belts or blank insignia or anything?"

"Hmm. Generic USA soldier, hrrm?" Ethan folded one arm across his chest, propped the elbow of his other arm on it, and cupped his chin n his hand, looking thoughtful. Xander grinned. In that pose, the man almost looked like he could start exclaiming to Mr. Benny at any moment now... "And how much are you prepared to spend, if you need to?"

"Hmm." Xander thought about it. He actually wasn't broke... between his weekend and occasional part time after school gig at the contracting supply place, he currently had a couple of hundred in his wallet, even without hitting his savings account. But that didn't mean he wanted to _spend_ any more than he absolutely had to... _that_ was his summer end of school road trip fund. And his comic book, snacks, movies, and sci-fi reading fund...

"Twenty dollars?" Xander said. "I could probably go for that much, if I _had_ to. Not much more."

"Hrmm. All right – " Ethan began, then broke off as they both watched Buffy and Willow head to the counter with an armload of costume stuff. Wonder of wonders, Will didn't look like she had her usual generic ghost outfit anywhere in her armload. "Do excuse me, please," Ethan said. "I'll think over what you've stated while I'm taking care of business. In the meantime, feel free to browse."

"All right, no problem," Xander said. As Ethan headed to the register, he began to turn to look over the replica and air soft guns on the wall hooks behind the counter, and in the glass cases. The over the door bell rang, drawing his attention, and his eye was caught by a determined looking Harmony storming in and looking around.

She saw him, sniffed, and turned to look elsewhere. Xander grinned. Good old Harm. Absolutely predictable.

He watched as she went to the movie and licensed costume displays, where Larry seemed to be transfixed by a life sized Terminator poster and costume display setup. Xander had spent a bit of time browsing that section, himself. He'd been seriously tempted by the display with the X-men comics version of the Sabretooth costume, but after looking at the price tag, and thinking about it. No.

Not only no, but hay-ull no. Not even at fifty percent off did he want to blow that much money on escorting kids for Synder. Larry could have that one if he wanted. It'd suit his personality.

"Hasta la vista, dip stick," Xander said in his best Ahnie voice, shaking his head. Larry _could_ probably pull off a decent Terminator, at that. He had the build, and the mindless determination of a robot...

"Uh," a voice said from nearby and downward. "I couldn't help overhearing... "

Startled, Xander looked around, and down. "Oh, hey Jonno." Jonathan Levinson nodded up at him, holding a boxed package in his arms. "So, what did you get?"

"Uh... I put a costume on reserve here a few day ago," Jonathan said. "Just came by to pick it up."

"Ok," Xander said, nodding. "What? Unless it's a major secret or something... "

"Oh, no, no secret," Jonathan said, grinning and ducking his head. "Sorry. Just a... WWII soldier outfit, .45, and a Thompson. I also got some WWII insignia. Fake of course, and not quite an authentic style Tommy-gun, but it'll do for Halloween."

"Ah." Xander nodded. "Sounds cool."

Joanthan nodded vigorously. "uh... " he shifted the box to under one arm, and reached into his shirt, pulling out a set of dog tags. "I got these the other day while I was here, and got them engraved at the Mall."

Xander leaned over to read the tags, and started grinning. "Ok, now that's actually almost cool."

"Really? You think so?" Jonathan brightened, like Xander had just handed him the Ed McMahon sweepstakes check. He stuffed the tags back under his shirt, smiling.

"Well, not that _I'm_ a major judge of cool," Xander said, "Based on what Cordy says about me, but I think so, anyway."

"Ah, what does Cordy know," Jonathan said.

"Exactly." Xander paused for a moment, and said, thoughtfully. "However, you may be the only guy in Sunnydale who's actually too short to pull that one off."

Jonathan gave him a wounded look.

"Sorry. Just kidding. Couldn't resist," Xander said. "I'll try lots harder next time. Huh," he said, looking thoughtful again, "Eyes?"

"Blue color contacts," Jonathan said.

"That'll do it. Sounds like you covered all the bases."

"Anyway," Jonathan said, shaking his head. "You know... soldiers _did_ carry shotguns, according to my dad. Well," he looked kind of dubiously at the prop Xander was holding, "Maybe not like that SPAS, but pump action sawed offs. They called 'em 'trench brooms'. And they used 'em in 'Nam, too."

"Huh."

"Ok, hey, Xan!" Buffy called out as she and Willow came over. "Hey, uh, Jonathan."

"Hey, Buffy," Jonathan said, looking like he wanted to hide behind Xander. "And, uh, Willow."

"Hey, Jonno," Willow said, smiling at the shorter boy.

"We're wrapped up and about ready to head on," Buffy said. "What about you?" She raised an eyebrow at the prop shotgun.

"Naw. I'm still looking," Xander said. "You guys go on without me." He grinned, looking at their packages. "So, what'd you get? Something in spandex, I hope?"

"Oh, you wish," Buffy said, grinning back. "Nope. They were all out of Supergirl outfits, and hey – if you can't be Super, why bother?"

"A wise philosophy," Xander said, nodding sagely. He raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Buffy decided to go with a Cinderella style gown," Willow said. "Instead of tavern wench, like I wanted her to."

"And Willow got herself a _not_ standard ghost," Buffy said. "I wanted her to go with the ultra sexy witch, but no... "

"Hey! Witches and me, not so good associations any more," Willow said. She shook her head, grinning at Xander, "Besides, way too much skin there. So we split the difference and I went with 'elegant ghost lady', instead."

"Cool. Can't wait to see them," Xander said.

"Well," Buffy said. "If you're sure?" She looked over to where Larry and Harmony were engaged in a discussion over the two Terminator outfits, the Ahnie one for Larry, probably, and the Red Leather T3 promo suit for Harm. Unless Harm was gonna go as Ahnie...

"I'm sure. No worries," Xander said.

"Ok, so, I'll go off and let you get pounded in your own way and time, then," Buffy said. "No more violating the guy codes for _me_. I've learned my lesson, yes sir."

"Bigger shovel?" Xander said, raising both eyebrows at her.

"Um, laid on too thick?"

"Just a leetle tiny bit, maybe... " Xander said, holding his hand up with thumb and forefinger about three inches apart.

"All right. Bye!" Buffy and Willow headed out, giggling with each other, and Xander went back to looking over the weapons wall with a new interest as a thought hit him.

"Ah. That gleam in the eye says you hit on something," Jonathan said.

"Huh. Maybe... " Xander said, slowly, his mind racing. If he swapped out a few parts here and there... and with half off, bought that nice looking air soft Beretta up there and a shoulder holster... didn't shave for the next day or so between now and Halloween, maybe... "Not a regular soldier, but between what you said, and what the brain trust twins over there are browsing, I _think_ I have an idea for an _irregular_ one."

* * *

_Thursday, October 30, 1997: Casa del Harris, Late Night – _

Down in the basement, Xander carefully turned off the iron, and set it down at the end of the ironing board, before turning to reach down and unplug it. He picked up his fatigue blouse and examined the job he'd just completed with a critical eye.

It'd do, definitely. He set the shirt off to one side with the rest of the pieces of his costume set out in careful order, and reached for the stencil set and the indelible marker, before picking the shirt back up again and carrying them over to a work table.

Let's see...

Stencils from the Dollar store's craft section. A knee length, olive drab, light weight over coat from the Thrift Store downtown. A package of iron on style stick on sci-fi and high tech "military" insignia and patches from that Ethan's shop.

And he'd decided to go ahead and splurge a bit, and not only gotten the air soft Beretta and military style shoulder holster, but also a fake, "stainless steel" plastic air soft long slide 1911 style .45 auto as well. And a rubber K-Bar style knife. He already had some old hiking boots, in place of the combat boots his other soldier outfit would have called for. He'd remembered he already had a web belt, from his short lived Boy Scout days, so that had saved him a bit of cash...

And a strap from an old camera case he'd found in his parents basement "junk pile shelf" made a dandy shoulder strap/sling for the toy SPAS 12 gauge.

All in all, at half off, he'd probably have come out cheaper to just go ahead and rent one of the full costumes of some type for the night.

But it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying...

Not that anyone stepping back in that universe would actually have all of their patches, insignia, or even their uniform, but... all of the little touches added a certain something to the effect. Xander hoped so, at least.

He finished stenciling in the name he'd chosen, and looked over at the end table where his odds and ends were.

Along with, while it wasn't really a _part_ of his costume per se, the little Iron Fist key-chain fob he'd seen in one of the odds and ends trays up near Ethan's register...

Jesse had always said that one of these days when they were in high school, he wanted to dress as Iron Fist – his all time favorite Marvel comic hero – and go to the annual Juniors and Seniors Bronze party that way.

Well, attached as it was to the old stone bead and leather thong Renn Faire bracelet that was almost all he had left of his one time and now long dead best male friend, it wouldn't _quite_ be like having Jesse along for the ride.

But it'd be as close as he'd ever get, ever again.

He needed one or two more pieces to finish off the outfit, but he figured he could pick up those at school tomorrow, one way or another.

* * *

.


	5. Stage Settings

**Chapter Four: Stage Settings...**

_Friday, October 31, 1997: 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Afternoon – _

In her bedroom, Buffy sat at the vanity table doing her makeup and putting the finishing touches on her ensemble. Not bad, she had to admit. Seriously, if this outfit didn't knock Angel for a loop, he was _completely_ hopeless and _so_ not even worth dating. Or anything else...

Finishing her makeup, she gave her hair a last, critical once over, and decided that while she wasn't one hundred percent ecstatic with it, it'd do. While she tried, she and Willow hadn't been able to duplicate one of the complicated up-do type hairdos they'd found in one of the libraries history books, so she'd ended up going with a French braid thing and piled it up in as good an approximation as she could manage. Which actually wasn't all that bad, approximately, she thought.

Hey: she even used approximately in a sentence, twice, and correctly even. Giles would be _so_ proud. Buffy grinned at her reflection.

Snyder had at least let all of the sign-up students out early today so they could get ready for escort duty, but not quite early enough for her to go to the beauty salon. Sadly. Oh well...

"All right," Buffy said, standing up and smoothing down her dress. "How do I look?"

"Uh, just a minute," Willow's voice called out from the bathroom. After a minute, she came bustling down the short stretch of hallway and in through Buffy's bedroom door. "Hey – that was going to be my question, darn it."

"Oh. Ok... I can do that," Buffy said. "I'm easy."

"Yeah, I've heard that about you Princess types," Willow said, giggling.

"Hey! I'll have you know I am not _that_ kind of Princess, Missy," Buffy said, laughing. "Ok... " she gave Willow a critical looking over, and was impressed. She gave a low wolf whistle. "Wow, I'd say that you'll knock 'em dead if I wasn't afraid that'd be in poor taste, all things considered."

"Really?" Willow brushed past her and shut the bedroom door, twisting and turning to examine herself in Buffy's full length mirror.

"Really."

She did, too. The 'Lady of the Sea' ghost outfit she'd finally talked Willow into had a long, raggedy white, low cut gown that had an over skirt that hung in white, tattered strips down and all around it. A white, gauzy over wrap around the chest, shoulders, and up to the neckline kept it from showing too much – or any, really – skin or cleavage in embarrassing places. Embarrassing for Willow, anyway, and Will had made it clear that was a deal breaker if she was going to be persuaded to _not_ buy the standard ghost outfit as a backup plan.

The outfit came with a sheer, translucent white shawl, and a ribbon edged translucent cowl to go over the head, and was completed by white medium-heeled sandals. Long white, lacy, elbow length gloves with artfully torn fingers finished it off.

"Yup. Definitely," Buffy said, giving her a thumbs up. "Wow, you're a dish, seriously. Kind of a decaying dish, but I so gather that that was the point."

"Cool." Willow took her turn at giving Buffy a once over. "Wow."

"Really?" Buffy turned in place, giving her a full three sixty view.

"Really," Willow said, nodding enthusiastically.

The blue, cream, and gold ball gown hadn't been Buffy's first choice, but the longer that she and Willow had looked between it and the long red eighteenth century noblewoman's dress that Ethan guy had been trying to sell her, the more she'd agreed with Willow about the whole noblewoman thing.

Well, not that Princesses weren't nobility, 'natch, but there _was_ a difference. And hey, what guy _didn't_ love beautiful Princesses? Buffy did have a few moments regrets about shooting down the tavern wench idea. Some of _those_ costumes were... scandalously gorgeous. Which was kind of the problem: one look, and Buffy's mom would have a _freak_.

She added the fake gold crown tiara thing and said, "Ta da!"

"Yup," Willow said, nodding enthusiastically. "Hey, Angel _doesn't_ go for this, dump him. He's too dense to be worth chasing."

"My thoughts exactly," Buffy said, grinning. "You look great, Will," she paused, and added, "Still think you should have done the 'Black Witch Hottie' costume, though."

"Buffy! No!" Willow said, looking scandalized. "I– I've worn _bikinis_ that had more material than that!"

"_You've_ worn a bikini?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah," Willow scowled at her. "At the _beach_. It's _different_."

"Uh huh. And you say so," Buffy said. "It's important for _you_ to believe that."

"You know, I still have time to go to Party Town and grab that Casper costume... "

"Oh _no_ you don't," Buffy said, glaring at her. "Not after all the work we put into getting you into _this_ one!" The two friends grinned at each other. "Ok, sit. Let's do your makeup now."

Willow nodded, taking a seat at the vanity, and swiveling the chair so Buffy could sit in front of her and start applying stuff. "Seriously, Buffy. _That_ sort of outfit just isn't _me_."

"Uh huh," Buffy said, "Which is actually the point. Hold still." Buffy started brushing on the white concealer base. "Look, Halloween is the night that not you _is_ you, but not _you_. Y'know?"

"Uh huh. And if you squint at that sentence sideways, it almost works, grammatically."

"Hush! And be still. You get a mouthful of this brush, it is so not my fault, darn it." Buffy eyed her work critically, and started to work on the next layer. "Grammar, schmammar. I still say you're missing the whole point of Halloween," she said, "And no, it is _not_ free candy. It's come as you aren't night. The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."

"Hey! This costume is about as _not_ me as you can get," Willow said. "I'd never have gone for this without you talking me into it. Besides, I don't do wild. Wild on _me_ equals spaz."

"Well, true," Buffy said. At Willow's narrow eyed look, her own eyes widened, and she hastily said, "No – _not_ on the spaz thing. On the this not being your usual style thing! Jeeze. But... if you don't take chances and get daring, how do you expect Xander to ever notice you?"

"Uh, maybe I don't want Xander to notice me like that anymore," Willow said. At Buffy's skeptical look, she said, "I mean, hey. Ampata? He proved he preferred a centuries old _mummy_ to me."

"Well, in all fairness, Ampata _was_ very pretty," Buffy said, shaking her head at Willow's glare, "And she didn't look centuries old up until the end. And she was really nice, and she really liked Xander."

"Well, hey! I'm really nice, a-and I really like him. For a long time now," Willow said, heatedly.

"Which _might_ be the problem," Buffy said. "You might know each other _too_ long. He might not be _able_ to see you past being 'best girl bud Willow'."

"Huh. You think... "

The doorbell rang downstairs, and Buffy stood and went to the door hastily, calling out, "Mom! That's probably Xander! Tell him we'll be done in a minute or so!"

"He probably heard you himself," her mom's voice yelled back. "The whole neighborhood probably heard you."

Her little sister's voice drifted up, laughing at that, and Buffy made a face. "Yeah yeah. Laugh it up, fuzz brain." She went back to the vanity table and sat down across from Willow again, "Ok, let's finish up. Tell you one thing: this doesn't knock _Xander's_ eyes out, you won't have any problems picking and choosing from other suitors. They'll be lining up... "

* * *

Xander straightened up into his best approximation of a military stance as he heard someone rattling the doorknob in preparation to opening it.

Mrs. Summers pulled the door open and looked out, her eyes and her smile widening as she took him in. "Well," she said, "I would say, 'Hel-lo soldier!', but given the two day shadow and the lack of spit and polish, I'm not sure that's correct?"

Xander grinned back at her, and snapped off a salute. "Ma'am. Uniform disciplines are a lot more relaxed at Tech-comm, North American Resistance Command, ma'am. We place more emphasis on 'can do' and not on 'looks like', ma'am."

Mrs. Summers' grin broadened, and she said, "I see that. And I approve. Buffy and Willow are still finishing up... come in and wait for them."

"Yes'm," Xander said, stepping in through the door. He got a twinge from the open invitation... it really made him nervous that Buffy had never given her mom the 4-1-1 on the real situation in Sunnydale, even after she'd been attacked by Darla last year. This was a bar-be-que fork murder just waiting to happen...

Oh well. Buffy's call, even if he didn't like it.

"Tech-comm, huh? That sounds awfully familiar for some reason," Mrs. Summers was saying, looking him up and down.

"Yes ma'am. We're the main resistance command for operations against Cyberdyne and Sky-net for the entire North American Continent, ma'am."

"Ah hah!" Mrs. Summers said. "I knew it. Terminator?"

"Yes'm. Both movies, kind of, but _mostly_ the first one," Xander said, nodding. "Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks, reporting for duty, ma'am."

"Hmm. I think you have the wrong movie there, soldier."

"Movie, ma'am?" Xander gave her a puzzled look. "Oh – you mean _vid_. That must be one I haven't seen yet. We don't get many vids in the resistance... And, no ma'am. Dwayne Hicks is the right name." Xander winked at her, and slouched suddenly, dropping back to normal stance and attitude. "Hey," he said, "Everyone expects Sergeant Kyle Reese when they hear 'Terminator'. What's the fun in that?"

Laughing, Mrs. Summers gave him a longer and more critical look over, and nodded. "True. But, um, aren't you just a _little_ bit, umm... overdressed for your role?"

"Mom!" Dawn's outraged voice cut into their conversation as she came bouncing up, just in time to save Xander from going more than partially bright red.

"Hey," Mrs. Summers said, winking at Xander. "I'm returned merchandise. _Doesn't_ mean I'm off the market."

"Mom!" Dawn tossed her hair, blushing furiously. "I am _so_ not speaking to you ever again. This is Xander!" Dawn paused, giving Xander the once over in turn. "Wow. Cool costume. Terminator?"

"Got it in one, Dawnster," Xander said. "Tech-Sergeant Dwayne Hicks, reporting as ordered."

"Uh huh, wrong movie, but I heard the explanation as I was finishing up my snack," Dawn said, grinning at him. "Cool."

"I'm gonna be getting that comment a lot, aren't I?"

"Uh huh," both Summers women said, almost in unison.

"Well, I'd change it to Dwayne Reese, Kyle's brother, but I already have my name tag stenciled in and it's too late," Xander said.

"Ah well, best laid plans and all that," Dawn said. Buffy's eleven year old sister grinned up at him, and walked around examining his outfit from all angles. "Ok, that's just cool. I like the detail."

"Thanks, Dawn Patrol," Xander said. he held his arms out from his side so she could get the best look.

He was actually kind of proud of the way everything had pulled together. All of the little odds and ends and pieces, complete down to the cheap fake dog tags he'd gotten and had stamped "Tech-Sgt Dwayne Hicks TCNARC Serial #: TZE08191221-51612" at the mall engraving kiosk, really enhanced the look.

He'd applied the various high tech and sci-fi looking military insignia and patches to the uniform blouse and the long, olive drab coat. A pair of black cargo pocket pants in place of the camo fatigue pants, and a black "AIRBORNE – Death from Above!" t-shirt worn under the open fatigue blouse completed one end. His old, scuffed and worn, woodland camo and brown suede hiking boots completed the other end. And the pair of Gargoyle aviator sunglasses he'd bought a year or so ago and seldom worn just kind of topped it all off.

The big plastic SPAS-12 hung from a strap inside the coat, with the air soft Beretta in a military style shoulder holster, and the silvery 1911 stuck through his old, ragged web belt.

Add some carefully applied ground in dirt, a few artfully applied burns here and there, and...

All in all, he looked every inch the veteran sci-fi soldier fresh in from a long combat deployment. One who hadn't yet had a chance to decompress, shower, shave, and clean up any before going back out again.

"Hmm." Dawn said. "Don't think you'd have all of the insignia and badges, given how they come back in time, y'know?"

"Yup," Xander said, nodding. "Which is why I'm going as one of the soldiers just _before_ he gets sent back. Hence the 'reporting for duty' thing, and hey – I used hence in a sentence! Score!"

Dawn grinned at him, nodding. "Ok, now that makes sense," she said.

"Wow. It's scruffy soldier" Xander heard, from the stairway.

He glanced up, and then did a double take. "Wow. Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia, I am in complete awe! I completely and totally renounce spandex!"

"Oh, _sure_, you say that _now_... " Buffy said, smiling. "But the first little super heroine minx in skin tight spandex that crosses your path, and you'll forget _all_ about me."

"Never! I said what I meant, and I meant what I said!"

"Uh huh," Buffy said, looking skeptical. "And it's _Princess_ Buffonia to _you_, peasant."

"I stand corrected," Xander said, "Or I will as soon as I bend over and pull my jaw up off the floor."

"Uh uh. _Kneel_ when you do that in the presence of royalty, serf," Buffy said, laughing. "Hey – just wait 'til you get a load of Willow, Xand."

"Hey. I'm coming. Just had to, uh, rearrange a bit... " Willow came jouncing down the stairs, stopping just behind Buffy when she saw Xander. "Wow. That really works, Xander. Cool."

"Thanks. And, hey – " Xander looked up at his longest and bestest friend, "– really not your standard Casper there. Wow, you look, uh, _dead_, Will."

"Xander!" Three outraged female voices yelled at him almost in unison.

"Really?" Willow's mouth split open into a wide grin. "I really do don't I? Wow! isn't this cool and Buffy helped me do the makeup because, hey, spaz me I could never figure out how to manage all of this and really, I think I look half drowned don't you think? All I need is to jump in a pool somewhere and... "

While running all of this full stream, Willow practically bounded down the stairs until she was standing in front of Xander grinning up at him.

"Uh, breath, Will," Xander suggested. "Deep breath. And... punctuate! You can do it!"

"Hey! There _was_ punctuation in there, Mister," Willow said. She took in a deep breath, and let it out, still grinning. Noticing Dawn, Buffy, and Mrs. Summers all staring at them, Willow looked around. "What?" she said, "I'm a _ghost_. I'm _supposed_ to look dead!"

"And you pull it off really really well, Will," Xander said.

"Thanks. And, wow, look at you," Willow said. Xander repeated the hold arms out from sides thing as she walked around him, examining the whole ensemble critically. "Not bad."

"Thank you. Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks, reporting for duty as ordered, ma'am," Xander said. "And, uh, shouldn't you be reporting to the casualty ward, ma'am? I'm pretty sure that KIAs aren't supposed to be out walking around, normally."

"Snerk," Willow said, snickering. "Ok, and I'm sure there's an explanation for the whole name mix and match... " she raised an eyebrow suddenly, and reached over and pushed his sleeve back, "_And_ for the little plastic Iron Fist charm on the bracelet?"

"Uh... " Xander glanced away, and shuffled his feet a bit. "Well... uh, you remember how Jesse always bragged that when we got to high school, he was going to go as Iron Fist and have the coolest costume at the Junior/Senior Bronze party and win the Best Costume award? I figured this was as close as he was gonna ever get, now."

Willow blinked at him. Her mouth dropped open, and then she blinked again rapidly a few times, and closed it, nodding. "Aww. That's... just neat. And is that... ?"

"Yeah. Jesse's old renn faire bracelet, the one he broke and left at my house? I, uh, patched it back together," Xander said. "Kind of thought that if Cordy and Aura were at the party after we finish the escort thing, and they're not being like, _complete_ bitcas, I could pull them off to one side, explain, and we could all have a toast for old times sake."

"Wow. Umm... do you really think they'd... but... " Willow blinked again, and said, "Sure. If they can play nice for a bit, I can. It might be cool."

"Ok... " Buffy said, and her voice brought both of them back to the world suddenly. Xander and Willow looked around, noticing all of a sudden that they had an audience that was working very hard at being unobtrusive. "I'm kind of lost here..."

"It's... " Xander smiled at her and shrugged.

"It's an old Four Musketeers thing," Willow said, "From when we were all in the second grade and still friends. I'll, uh, explain it later, ok?"

"One for all, and all for one," Buffy said, lifting an eyebrow, and smiling. "Sure. And, wow, we'd better get going." She looked over at her mother and sister, and said, "Are you two heading out soon, also?"

"Yes," Mrs. Summers said, Dawn nodding beside her. "I figure I'll leave around five thirty, and if traffic's not bad, I'll be in Santa Barbara in time to grab a bite before heading to the gallery party. Plenty of time to get dressed and ready, too. And Mr. Trejo is picking up Dawn for trick or treating at five."

"Cool." Buffy looked at her sister. "You be careful out there, Squirt."

"Hey! I'm taller than _you_, Shrimp," Dawn said, rolling her eyes. "And _yes_, Mom Junior. Jeeze. I'm going to be with a troop of kids, and Carlos' dad and Becky's older sister are gonna be with us."

"Hey. Halloween's supposed to be quiet for, uh, crime," Buffy said, "But you never can tell."

"So," Xander said, stepping in to defuse the potential explosion. "What're you going out as, Dawn Patrol?"

"Oh! Cat-woman – we found this really _cool_ black suede cat woman outfit for rental, and I'm gonna look deadly!"

"Neat," Willow said. Xander nodded his agreement, smiling at the eleven year old.

"Well, I know big sis is a pain, but..." he ignored Buffy's glare, "Still. Pays to watch yer back out there."

Buffy nodded, mollified a bit. "Yeah. Listen to Trooper Scruffy if you won't listen to me. And, hey – time to go."

"Yup. Well, let's saddle up," Xander said. "Snyder said that there's a demerit and a day in detention for every minute we're late picking up our kids."

"Yipe!" Willow's eyes went big and round. "Let's go go go – I _can't_ get demerits! No demerits!"

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Ethan's Costume Emporium, Late Afternoon – _

Going to the door, he flipped the hanging sign from 'OPEN' to 'CLOSED', and turned the lock. Still a bit early, but he needed time to finish his preparations for the night's festivities. Turning back, he ignored the disappointed looking young man who saw the closed sign and rattled the door anyway, and went to the intercom by the cash register.

"All right everyone," Ethan Rayne said. "My apologies, one and all, but we will be closing early this evening. If all of you who are now in the shop would please make your selections, and settle up, it would be _greatly_ appreciated."

There was a murmurer, a couple of catcalls from boorish American teenagers, and a few protests directed toward the front.

"Now now," Rayne said into the intercom again. "Please. Note that I am not bustling everyone out, nor am I giving anyone the bum's rush, as it were. Merely a courtesy notice, that's all. Please, take time to finish your shopping and selections, and make all of your choices. And please, do enjoy your time in my establishment and the holiday. Thank you."

He leaned back against the display wall behind the counter, a rather satisfied looking smirk crossing his lips.

While he hadn't quite done the volume of business he might have, he _had_ done quite well for a brand new establishment with very little advertising, that had only been open for a couple of weeks. He had sold a lot of costumes: including a number of the 'Specials' that he'd laid in for the occasion. Plenty of ghouls and goblins and ghoulies and tiny heroes and villains. Plenty of movie monsters and classics, both child and adult – and teenager sized – in all varieties. Soldiers from various eras and nationalities would be out walking the streets with barbarians, pirates, buccaneers, privateers, and musketeers of all varieties. Cowboys would be once again doing battle against cinematic redskins. Err, Native Americans. He smiled. One _must_ be politically correct, these days, after all...

Adventurers, Ghost Busters, and Tomb Raiders, oh my!

Mostly villains and monsters, true. And he'd sold well over a hundred pirate and sailor costumes of various types and sizes: he'd been sure to stock and prepare a lot of them. You could always count on pirates and buccaneers to create chaos, and sailors and sailor wenches were always bawdy, lusty, and quarrelsome on shore leave. He'd even, almost surprisingly to him, gotten a pair of huge special orders for pirate and sailing costumes from a pair of local, and more importantly _wealthy_, yacht owners. Fortunately, his supplier hadn't even _blinked_ at filling the special orders, nor the quantity, and they'd arrived in _plenty_ of time to be prepared, and then delivered.

Out across Sunnydale, there were soon to be more than a hundred lusty, bawdy, and rambunctious sailors, sailing wenches, and horny pirate and pirate lasses out looking for diversion and causing havoc... Plus, somewhere out there in Sunnydale's yacht basin, at least another two hundred plus between the two yacht owners and their special orders.

He grinned to himself at that one boorish American businessman's specifications for the costumes for the female crew and the 'special hostesses'. He had the feeling that mister horny businessman was going to get far more than he'd bargained for. At least assuming they were in the confines of the city when the enchantment hit: he wasn't certain what happened to costumes outside of the spell's radius.

Ethan had no idea what would come of the Crossed Sword and Skull and Skull and Crossbones flags that he'd sold the man for his friend's ship, but it was bound to be greatly entertaining.

But it was not only pirates, brigands, and monsters: there were also an assortment of heroes and good guys in the mix to balance things out. And to increase the chaos factor, naturally. That was the _point_, after all: the _chaos_. Nothing _too_ powerful, though. No supermen or green lanterns or whatever. No sense in frivolously creating a threat that could harm _him_.

He'd even managed to unload the two Terminator costumes, both the large male one from the two movies, and the female promotional one from the new series or film or whatever that hadn't been released yet, and was still stuck in development hell. The production house that had developed it had unloaded it after yet another treatment and redesign had made the current costume, err, less than relevant. He wasn't quite certain what the feminine Terminator – Terminatrix? - was supposed to do, but it should prove _vastly_ entertaining. And a great generator of chaos, which was the most important thing...

He'd also sold the X-Men, whatever that was, comic book Sabretooth promotional costume that his studio contact had sold him. That one had gone to some tall, broad shouldered, young black footballer with blond dyed hair, from one of the local High Schools. Hopefully, the one Rupert frittered away his time and potential toiling uselessly at.

Now, _that_, actually all three of those, had the potential to be quite dangerous, but... he was amply prepared to end the spell prematurely if needed, should things get out of hand. 'Out of hand' meaning: should any of those three happen upon and into his shop for some odd reason. He had no, or at least little, concern for what sort of havoc and destruction they produced _elsewhere_.

And, best of all, he'd managed to glean from careful listening in on various conversations that Rupert's Slayer and the rest of his little brats were among the purchasers of his wares. Including that young man who'd bought the rather bewildering assortment of odds and ends... he idly wondered what that was going to produce, come show time. Ethan almost was tempted to hope that nothing to terribly bad happened to the young man once the spell hit: finding an American teen who actually _knew_ who Groucho Marx was, much less was able to quote him appropriately, was nearly a pearl beyond price in this day and age.

He also couldn't help but wonder about the young fellow who bought the WWII combat soldier set up. Rather amusing, all in all, to speculate on how that gentleman was going to react to the situation he was going to suddenly find himself in, once the spell went off.

Even better, or, well... almost as good, he'd even made a profit on sales above and beyond what Wolfram and Hart was paying him to set up and pull off this little costume drama.

Ethan hadn't bothered to tell the smarmy young fellow who'd hired him that once he'd determined that his old mate was involved, he'd have done the job simply for the funding to set it up, no additional fee needed.

Of course not. One did have one's professionalism, after all.

He glanced at the clock, waiting for his remaining customers to finish up. Three thirty-five. Plenty of time, once this lot was done and gone, to finish up and cast the spell before sundown.

Idly, he wondered just how long it would take for dear old Rupert to figure out what was going on, and to track the source back to Ethan's shop and Ethan.

_That_ little confrontation should be vastly entertaining as well.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Shady Hill Cemetery, Late Afternoon – _

Yawning, Kendra sat up and stretched. Sleeping on the floor was hard, no pun intended, but hardship was good for a Slayer, she reflected. It toughened them up.

With another yawn, she stood and went to her backpack, pulling out a warm twenty ounce soda to drink down for the caffeine burst. Looking around, she grimaced slightly. Well, her accommodations here weren't the best even by the standards of rural Jamaica and Haiti, but they'd do. And sleeping in an empty and abandoned crypt at least had one thing going for it: it was rent free. Which helped her to save on her expenses so she could stretch her out...

Getting from the islands to the United States wasn't even as hard as she'd anticipated. Nor was sneaking onto the plane and finding a place to hide. Getting past the airport and security had been a tiny bit harder, but not much.

Not for a trained Slayer.

She wished that the rest of her duties here were as easy and as simple to fulfill. So far, she had been in Sunnydale for three days, roughly – three and a half if you counted that she'd gotten here late Tuesday afternoon – and she had yet to identify the source of the Dark Power that was supposed to be rising. And now it was Halloween night, the night of Samhain, when it was supposed to actually rise...

She hated even the appearance of failure, but there were, she was discovering, limits to how much you could accomplish in the way of investigation when you couldn't operate openly. Keeping and maintaining a secret identity did make things a bit more difficult.

Ah well.

So far, she had basically managed to determine where any dark rites were _not_ taking place. There did not seem to be preparations for anything at any of the cemeteries, not at any of the abandoned properties about town, nor at the various estates that she'd seen and had managed to investigate. She had seen and located numerous vampires and demons, including a small demon bar in the industrial district. She had not gone slaying though, being mindful of her Watcher's admonition to keep a low profile and _not_ to advertise that there was once again a Slayer on the Hellmouth.

She _had_ marked the various lairs and nests though, in her mind's eye. There was nothing preventing her from making a sweep of town and removing them, or their denizens, rather, _after_ her mission was accomplished.

One thing she had noted was all of the preparations the local denizens were making for the Samhain celebration, including decorations and costuming. Puzzling, as that was not something she had ever celebrated, but... interesting as well.

She had almost been tempted to purchase a costume to help her fit in this evening, possibly from that small shop she'd found on Main Street. She had decided against it.

It seemed... frivolous.

At least she had managed to locate the Sunnydale Watcher, Rupert Giles – both his home flat and his office location at the Sunnydale High School. If the early part of the night didn't produce any clues as to the nature of the problem, she would make contact with him and ask for his assistance. She had also identified observed the group of students that associated with him, and wondered about them. Former associates of Buffy Summers?

That seemed odd, and somewhat distasteful to her, but Sam Zabuto had stated that Summers, the former Slayer, had been unconventional, even to the point of taking assistance from locals when needed.

The Slayer worked alone, except for her Watcher. Or, at least, that was the theory, and was supposed to be the practice.

Kendra reflected, a bit ruefully, that she might have been tempted to bend the theory and the practice a bit if having some assistance might have helped her actually locate the source of the Dark Power more easily...

Ah well. Too late for worrying over might have beens. She had none, and that was that.

She did have her knife, her favorite stake, Mr. Pointy, a heavy bladed knife, and a short sword. She had tough leather jeans, a blouse, a leather vest, and a long coat, sturdy boots, and two changes of clothing. She also had plenty of money for expenses, thanks to her own frugality. _And_ she had her wits and her training and instincts. That would have to be sufficient.

Thinking over her options, she checked the time on her small pocket watch. Time before dark to visit the demon bar and question the owner for information.

After which, she figured, she would follow some of Rupert Giles' students for a time and see if they led her to anything useful, before she resorted to making contact with the Watcher himself. If they had worked with the Slayer, and still worked with the Watcher, surely they couldn't be oblivious to the signs and portents.

They _had_ to be using the Samhain preparations and costuming as a cover for their own investigations and activities.

In the meantime... certain pressures were telling her that it was time to find a facility where she could relive herself, clean up a bit, and change clothes. And then a place to get something to eat.

After all, one had to take care of the machine before it would function well. And the Slayer's body was a well oiled machine.

Time to move.


	6. Lights, Cameras

**Chapter Five: Lights, Cameras...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Late Afternoon 3:40pm – _

They actually arrived at the school a bit early, having made better time on the walk, err, near run from Buffy's house than they'd expected due to Willow hustling them along. Xander hadn't even minded the almost jog, really. Running was an exercise he'd never minded, having done, oh, tons of it growing up, and the extra sweat just added a bit of ambiance to the whole 'scruffy soldier' thing. And this was more of a very fast walk... it hadn't phased Buffy, either, except for her stopping once early on to take her clear plastic high heels off.

Willow was the one who'd ended up regretting it. She had never liked strenuous activity even when they were kids... and she'd gotten even more sedentary as a teen once she'd discovered computers. She was actually puffing when they reached the school.

"Ahhh... " Xander flexed his arms back and forth, taking in a deep breath. "Nothing like a brisk fall afternoon walk at high speed."

Buffy shot him a look, doing her level best to hide a grin.

"Oh, shut up," Willow said. "Remind me to hurt you very badly later, Pinky."

"Poit! Sorry, Brain."

"No, you're not. But you will be," Willow said.

"Eep!" Xander ducked behind Buffy, peeping out from behind her voluminous blue and gold skirts.

"Hey!" Buffy thumped him on the head. "No hiding behind the Princess, Knave."

"Ok," Xander said, standing up and rubbing his head. He gave Buffy a cheerfully hurt expression. "And, what's a Knave, anyway?"

"No idea, but it just _sounded_ like what you are," Buffy said. "Hey, look on the bright side, Will. We're early. No demerits."

"I would hurt you too, but you can probably beat me up with one finger."

"Well, _I'm_ going in to show the flag and look around," Xander said, "And let Snyder see that I'm here. _You_ can stay out here, Miss Huffy and Puffy, and get the demerits for all of us." Tossing off a jaunty salute, he went up the steps and in.

"Hey! I will _find_ you, Xander, and I will _kill_ you," Willow called after him, "And _not_ necessarily in that order."

"That'll be a neat trick if you can pull it off. Can I watch?" Buffy said. Willow glared at her. "Oh, come on," Buffy held out a hand to help Willow up, "He does have a point. We should go in."

"Grrr." Willow took her hand and let Buffy hoist her up. "I hate you both."

* * *

Inside, there were kids, and parents dropping off kids, and sign up staff and teachers all milling about. Xander looked around, bemused and slightly amazed at the level of controlled chaos going on.

Just for grins, he leaned up against a wall near the sign up table after he registered to let them know he was here, making sure he carefully noted the time and date on the form. He couldn't help it – he just had to see who got drafted and what they were all going out as.

Let's see... there's, uh, Freddy Iverson, Holden Webster, and Tucker Wells, all wearing elaborate looking movie vampire outfits. Xander sneered quietly to himself. If those idiots had ever seen a real vampire, they wouldn't idolize them enough to ever want to dress up as one.

_He_ for certain wouldn't be caught dead dressed as a vampire. Heh heh. Caught dead, get it?

Actually, if he was caught by a vamp, ever, he'd _be_ dead, and he'd wake up dressed however he was buried. None of these flowing black silk capes and ruffled shirts and brocaded vests etc. Most actual vamps he'd seen had even worse fashion sense than _he_ did...

Oh well, all in fun, Xander guessed. He sneered a bit less, well, not at _all_, actually, at Veronica Daley wearing an abbreviated female version of the same. Wow. On _her_, the low cut black and red bustier thing, short short black and red skirt, long red lined black cloak with the high scalloped collar, fishnet hose, and thigh high boots looked edible, not sneerable at. Damn. Bite me, baby. Or at _least_ nibble. She swept past him without a glance...

Xander rolled his eyes. Vamp tramp. All of 'em alike. Mesmerize you and move on, they don't call, they don't write...

And over there, wow. Was that Cordelia? Man oh man... skin tight fake tiger skin and leather, strategically slashed in all the right places, surely did do a lot to showcase the goods to great effect. And, my. Serious goods there, too. Xander studied the, uh, rear porch swing as she stalked over to the short, multi-colored hair upperclassmen kid, whatever his name was, to have a few words with him. Uh... Oz, that was it. Devon's band mate. And, oh: Cordelia did _not_ look happy, going by her body language.

He wondered what Cordelia was doing here, anyway. He knew for a fact that she didn't have kid duty...

Oh! Hey, that reminded him. He needed a couple of props he'd never managed to grab earlier.

Peeling off of his wall, Xander headed over in the general direction of where Cordelia and Oz were talking, and up the hallway a bit, looking for one of Cordy's 'Vote Me for Homecoming Princess!' displays. Hell, after seeing that tiger-suit, _he'd_ vote for her...

He nodded at them as he went by, getting a short nod back from Oz. Heh, being distracted, apparently, Cordelia even nodded back without snarking at him.

And probably without registering who he was, even... and, my, those slashes did show some interesting chest curvage, didn't they? More snapshots for the inner porn files, to go with the red lacy undies.

Naturally, paying more attention to the walls and to his own thoughts and fantasies, he didn't even notice Larry Blaisdell until he virtually ran into him and bounced off.

"Hey!" Larry gave him a shove, staggering him. "Watch where you're going, Harris."

"Yeah, sorry," Xander muttered. "Mostly in the way that's kinda not, but hey – it's the thought that counts, right?"

"As if you have thoughts, Harris," Larry said, grinning. He fake lunged toward Xander, laughing when Xander flinched back despite himself.

"Hey, I have thoughts," Xander said, his mouth running on automatic, far in advance of either his brain, or his common sense. "Like, right now, I'm thinking, 'who let Dr. Frankenstein set up shop in Sunnydale?'"

Larry processed that for a moment, and then scowled. One hand curled into a fist, and then he paused, looking both directions up and down the hallway. "So, where's your bodyguard, Harris? Home curling her hair?" He laughed.

"Oh, around." Xander waved vaguely, and said, "Somewhere that's else, probably."

"Your bad luck," Larry said, almost growling. He paused, giving Xander a puzzled look up and down. "What are you dressed as, anyway? A bum?" He snickered at his own wit, or maybe half of it...

Xander couldn't help the lopsided smirk. He _tried_, he really did, but... "Oh, I'm thinking as the guy who came back hunting the guy _you're_ dressed as."

"Oh yeah?" Larry sneered at him. "Maybe we'll run into each other later on. Remember: _your_ guy was killed by _my_ guy. Keep that in mind."

"And _my_ guy got laid by Linda Hamilton, which puts _me_ ahead on the curves," Xander said, enjoying the exchange despite the fact that he was probably going to die from it... "Which reminds me. _Your_ guy got killed by a _gurl_. Neener neener."

"Oh, yeah?" Larry's expression darkened. He took a step forward suddenly, and shoved, without telegraphing it. Xander went into the wall and slid down it, pulling down several posters as he stumbled and went over backwards.

"Hey!" A sharp female voice cut across the exchange as Xander was pushing himself up onto one elbow. "Do you have any _idea_ how much those posters cost to _print_? Jeeze."

"Aww, Cordy," Larry said, "I didn't even see your poster. Just taking down some trash and they got in the way."

"Yeah? And just who is going to _replace_ that display, _jerk_?" Cordelia stood with her hand on her hips, her face flushed, and her eyes flashing. Xander managed to get himself up onto his feet, and leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Damn, but Cordy sure looked great when she was pissed off. Better when she wasn't pissed off at _you_.

Heh. He'd been looking for one of those displays... just hadn't figured on finding one this way.

"No idea," Larry shrugged, grinning and looking completely unconcerned. "Don't really care, either. Get Harris to help you put it back up." Larry turned, taking a step toward Xander, who straightened and did his best to face his doom looking unconcerned.

"Oh, great. Yeah, that's a good way to impress a girl," Cordelia said, from behind Larry. "Oh, wait. That's right... girls aren't really impressed much by guys beating up other guys."

Larry half turned, looking at her and raising his eyebrows. "What do you care? It's just Harris."

Cordelia blew completely past that, smiling. "Not worthwhile girls, anyway. Like, oh, Andrea whom you were wanting to go out with? She really _hates_ thugs, she said."

"What are you saying, Cordy?" Larry's eyebrows, or, eyebrow – Xander wasn't sure he _had_ more than one – drew down.

"Me? Nothing," Cordelia said, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm just thinking out loud... thinking that if you ever want to date a Cordette, _any_ Cordette, ever _again_, you'll let this whole thing _drop_ here. For _good_."

"Wait. You're taking up for Harris? _You_?" Larry took a couple of steps forward. Xander followed, unnoticed, trailing along behind and off to one side.

"Me? Nuh uh," Cordelia said, smiling sweetly. She tossed her hair, "_I'm_ taking up for the fact that _you_ destroyed my _stuff_, jerk. _Xander_ is just getting fringe benefits, because, well, I _feel_ like it. Problem?"

"Just a poster, Cordy, jeeze," Larry shrugged.

"And it's _just_ a date or two, jeeze," Cordelia said. "But hey, if that doesn't _matter_ to you, go ahead." She gestured toward Xander. "Perform for me."

Larry half turned in Xander's direction.

"Oh, wait, that's right," Cordelia's voice turned him back. "You _can't_. Or at least that's what _Harmony_ said."

Larry rounded on her like a freight train as Xander's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. Holy _crap_. Cordelia just went nuclear. Larry's fist clenched as he took a step forward, and his arm lifted as his face clouded over and went dark.

Cordelia's eyes went wide and her hand dropped from where one finger had been tapping at her chin thoughtfully, and then her eyes narrowed. "Oh no you _so_ did not _just_... " she said, stepping _forward_, not back. _Insanely_ froward.

Apparently not the _only_ completely insane person in this hallway... Xander somehow found himself stepping forward, and his hand going forward to lock on Larry's wrist, pulling it down and back. Larry yanked forward reflexively, pulling Xander around and sending him staggering past and in front of himself.

Which actually suited Xander, kind of. It put him between Neanderthal Larry and Cordelia. Oh, goody...

"Hitting girls, Lar, so not cool," Xander said, turning to face the much bigger teen. "Hitting girls _I've_ known since kindergarten? _Major_ uncool." Xander felt a slow, insane half smile spread across his lips, one he hadn't felt since Giles had exorcised the hyena spirit out of him and the others. "And really kinda not too bright."

"Hey! I wasn't gonna... " Larry said, then broke off, scowling. "And what would _you_ do about it, anyway?"

"Whatever it takes," Xander said, quietly. "Whatever it takes."

"Yeah, right," Larry said, contemptuously. He shook his head and then stalked past them, shoving Xander out of his way with a shoulder as he went by. "You're lucky, Harris. Not sure how you get all the gals body guarding you, but you're lucky. For now."

"Yeah yeah... " Xander raised the toy SPAS from under his coat, aiming it at the back of Larry's head, then lowered it, feeling foolish.

"Wow. You really do have a death wish," Cordelia said, quietly.

"Starting to seem like," Xander said. He shook his head, letting out a deep breath, and added, "Or, more likely, I'm just nuts. Or stupid."

"Uh huh," Cordelia said, nodding. "I'd actually buy either of the last two."

Xander laughed, and then shook his head, grinning at her. "Never change, Cordy. C'mon, I'll help you pick up your poster and stuff." He knelt down to start picking up the scattered 'Take one!' pictures, palming one of each and sliding them in his pants pocket while he was at it.

"Oh, crap," Cordelia said. "Just... leave it. The Janitor can clean it up later and toss it."

"You sure?" Xander stood up, turning to face her with his eyebrow raised.

"Yeah. The edge is all torn up. I'll just put up a new one on Monday," Cordelia said. She looked at him, scowling, "Well, I would say we're even now, but I kinda lost count of who's ahead."

"Cordy... " Xander scrubbed both hand through his hair, feeling exasperated. "I _told_ you: I never did anything that needs paying back."

"Uh huh," Cordelia said. "Which is why I have to." She smirked at him, "Don't strain over it, lame brain. It's a Cordelia Chase thing. You wouldn't understand."

"Beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals, huh?" Xander looked at her, raising his eyebrows and smirking.

"Well, at least ones at _your_ low level of comprehension, anyway," she said, grinning.

The school loudspeaker came on, with Snyder's voice announcing that it was time for everyone in the escort program to meet their groups up front. This means you, and this means _now!_

Cordelia glanced toward the entry way, and nodded. "Well, you better go pick up your brats, and I need to go see if my date has shown up yet."

"Uh huh," Xander said, starting to amble toward the front. "Fun fun fun."

"Your guy got laid by Linda Hamilton?" Cordelia said, her eyebrows going up. Xander opened his mouth, starting to smirk, and she held up a hand. "No, wait. I figured out from the way you and Larry were dressed that it was some sci-fi geek thing, and I _really_ don't want any of that clogging up my brain. Keep it."

"Gotta keep it open for important stuff, right?" Xander said, nodding. "Like if Gucci and Versace go together this year or not."

"Exactly."

"Hey, why is Larry here, anyway?" Xander asked.

"Oh, he pissed off Coach Larsen somehow, and got volunteered for kid duty."

"Oh, great. Like there aren't already _enough_ kids that are traumatized for life."

* * *

A bit more shaken by her near altercation with Larry than she'd want to admit to anyone, especially Harris of all people, Cordelia delayed partingfrom her long term enemy and frenemy with a bit of reluctance. Brrr. Larry was going to _hit_ her? Jerk. She glanced sidelong at the once again geek ambling beside her. Of course Xander probably knew she was shook. He'd always been good at knowing her...

They paused to let a large teen wearing a gorilla costume with khaki trousers and a pith helmet go past them from a cross corridor. He turned down the main hall toward the signups as they both stared at him.

"I wonder if there's another kid wearing a Mister Peebles costume somewhere around here," Xander said, smiling oddly while watching the gorilla-boy.

"What? Huh?" Cordelia looked at him blankly.

"Magilla Gorilla? Mister Peebles Pet Store?" Xander raised an eyebrow, and added, "Classic Hannah Barbera cartooon... ?"

"Uh..." Cordelia shook her head. "Like, what _ever_. I have zero clue what you're talking about, so it can't be very cool."

"Never mind."

They paused again to let another teen, this one a very tall, slender guy wearing black jeans, a Mountain t-shirt, old boots, a long black duster, and carrying a long staff sweep by on his way to the sign in tables.

"Wait, isn't that Joel Garrity? Wasn't he on the freshman basketball team last year... " Cordelia said, her gaze following him.

"Yeah, until he blew his knee out," Xander said, also watching he kid as he picked up a group of rugrats. "And the chess club. He used to play D&D with me and Jesse and Will."

Rolling her eyes, Cordelia said, "Figures," and then looked at him suspiciously. "And why are you smiling real weird like that, Skate Boy?"

"Nothing. It's one of those Geek Things you don't care about," Xander said, shrugging and smirking at her.

"So very right. Well, off to your rugrats, dork," Cordelia said, slapping him on the bicep. "I'm going to find me an Owen and go where there's at least _some_ cool left."

"Antarctica?" Xander smirked at her. "Should fit your personality, anyway. But I've heard the Emperor Penguins can be vicious little critters."

"Hah! Gee, _that_ was almost not lame," Cordelia said, smirking back. Back to normal. And Xander no longer had that almost scary intensity he'd had there for a minute... "But I guess even _you_ have to hit on _one_ cylinder _some_ time."

"Yup. That's me. Old One-cylinder Harris, hot rod extraordinary," Xander said, laughing off the insult. He looked at her seriously for a moment. "Don't ever change, Cordy. See ya."

Right. Cordelia watched him stroll off to where line ups were being held, Snyder the Troll Principal tapping his clipboard against his hand impatiently. "Thanks for the warning, Geek," she muttered.

Looking around, she saw Larry in his Ahnie getup striding out the front doors, ignoring Snyder's shout. Boy, he was really screwing up by the numbers tonight, wasn't he?

She spotted the figure she was looking for and strode over to him. "Owen! About time, jeeze."

"Ah. The fair Cordelia," Owen grinned, and swept off his fedora, giving her a low bow. "Your escort and your chariot awaits."

"Of course it does," Cordelia said. "It wouldn't dare do otherwise." She looked him up and down. Not too bad. Always a good looking kid, and now he had a nicely scruffy look instead of his usual languid poet affect. What, uh, that Harrison Ford thing? Han Sulu? Whatever.

"What are you supposed to be? No, wait – " Cordelia held up a hand. "I don't care. Let's go."

* * *

Warren Mears looked around with sardonic amusement at all the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders and their parents milling around, and their costumed escorts. Man, he was sure glad he'd escaped that duty. He smirked, ducking behind a row of lockers as Snyder cast a jaundiced look around the main entry hall.

Oops. Better lay low. Blaisdell ducked out and the Ferengi is going to be looking for new victims to fill in.

Warren wouldn't even be here at this hour, but the Math Club had met this afternoon and just let out.

He snickered to himself, thinking about the confrontation he'd just witnessed. Man, Xander Harris had some serious nuts standing up to Larry the Australopithecus. He had to know that the huge Quarterback could flatten him with one punch. But then again, standing up for Cordelia Chase? Might be _worth_ a punch. She had looked seriously porno in that tight, slashed tiger suit. Mrrow. At least Harris had taste, even if he _didn't_ have any _brains_. Well, except for the cheerleader's personality.

What Warren wouldn't give for a mind control ray. As long as she could be ordered not to _talk_, Cordelia had _serious_ potential as an Orion Slave Girl.

Hrmm. Warren wondered if he could manage to come up with a waterproof, miniaturized visual surveillance system for the cheerleader locker room and showers. And the drill team's... One that couldn't be spotted and found. Had potential. He could sell _that_ footage online, anonymously, and recoup his expenses – lots of pervs would love to see _real_ naked teen girls.

And he could keep plenty of naked Cordelia footage for himself, natch. Digital – ones and zeroes didn't care how many times they were duplicated. Had potential. He'd have to put in some spec work and some serious CAD work on the idea. He was pretty sure he could pull it off...

Across the hall and down aways, he spotted a tall slender girl he vaguely recognized. Uh, Kim Something? Wilkins, no that was the Mayor... Wimberly? Whatever. He was a very new transfer, and had barely begun to have time to meet anyone much. Not that he was really outgoing or had any real success at that, anyway.

What did catch his attention was that Kimberly was wearing a Star Trek outfit. The blue skintight catsuit thing from Voyager, with her blonde hair cut short and a gray ocular thing around her eye. Seven of Nine, cool. And she looked _good_ in it. He wondered how much stuffing was in her bra to give her that authentic thirty-six of D look. He didn't think she'd been that top heavy in Trig...

What mattered though, was the outfit, damn. Warren didn't even think any of the girls here knew what Star Trek _was_, much less _Voyager_. He'd never have guessed any of them would dress as a character like Seven.

He watched her rear swing, leering, as she sashayed out the front doors. Nice rear, too, for a brainiac. Heh. Apparently _she_ hadn't gotten nailed for escort, either. Cool.

Warren would have loved to have talked to her for a bit, but no way was he gonna go out into the hall and let Snyder see him. He ducked down the side hall, heading for a side parking lot exit.

Maybe he'd see her at the Bronze.

He paused to check his costume in the reflection of a glass display case. Warren thought he looked good. Ok, so it was a seriously obscure Next Gen character that he doubted anyone but a geek would get. And he was pretty sure he had no hope of placing anywhere near the Junior Senior Costume Contest winnings.

Wah. At least the people who'd matter would get it. Doctor Soong was his favorite of the Next Gen people. Screw Picard, Worf, and the bridge crew. _Mears_ liked the _inventors_...

Had been hard finding all the odds and ends he'd needed, but he'd finally found a few at that new place, Ethan's. Just enough to round out the effect.

Eh. Time to go and hook up with Tucker, Lance, and Weeks. He hoped that Tucker was able to manage to ditch his little brother Andrew. Man... that kid was _seriously_ dorky.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Willy's Alibi Room, Late Afternoon -_

"All right! All right! I swear to God, lady," Willy said, doing his very best to edge away from the point of the short sword under his nose. Considering he was backed up against the wall and shelves behind his bar with a sink and counter edge to one side and the curve of the bar to the other, his very best wasn't very good. There just wasn't anywhere to edge to...

"I am not certain dat God will help you," the young female demon said, her tone of voice as mild and pleasant as her black eyes were cold and hard.

She had to be a demon, or maybe a crossbreed. Probably of some species Willy had never heard of, but hey, he was a bartender, not a demonologist. He didn't even pretend to know every single type of demon out there... Actually, what she _looked_ like was a young woman of maybe her late teens at best, with black hair in a long braid, and cafe au lait skin. No horns, scales, or claws that he could see, but that didn't mean nothing. Not all demons had 'em.

Willy _might_ have thought that the girl was a Slayer, especially given the way that she'd first off a) pinned him to the bar with a long knife driven so far through his jacket sleeve and into the bar top he hadn't a hope in Hell of pulling it out, and b) slaughtered nearly all of his patrons with a short sword taken from under her light jacket. And had done b) with a speed and dispatch that would have left Buffy Summers or Angel blinking.

Not that there were that many patrons yet at four twenty on a Friday afternoon, but still... a half dozen demons and half-breeds of various types, and two or three vamps? Alone? Impressive.

No Slayer, though. As far as Willy knew, Buffy Summers was still among the living, and he'd never heard anything about any Slayer being called after Nest had had his way with Summers last May. Meaning that rumors that Nest had done for Summers, briefly, were about as reliable as a Presidential campaign promise.

He couldn't quite decide if it was unfortunate or lucky that she'd pinned him to the bar too far away for him to have any remote hope of reaching the sawed off Ithaca ten gauge under the bar near the cash register –

– With _his_ luck, she'd duck under the load of buckshot and then feed it to him. Or turn out to be immune to steel shot. Fortunate then, he reckoned.

"Yer probably right, Miss," Willy said, trying to blink away a trickle of sweat from the corner of one eye. "Me an' the Big Guy haven't been on good terms since Father MacKuen caught me in the church loft with Sylvia Lazenby in fifth grade..."

That actually got a smile from the female Hell Spawn. Not very nice smile, though... "Ye should have married your paramour, then," she said, pleasantly.

"Hey, who says I didn't?"

"And not gone into de bidness of demon service," she said. Gulp. "As far as I am concerned, ye are de worst kind of scum: human scum dat caters to those who prey on his own kind, for money."

"Hey, now... " the short sword pressed just a tiny bit farther into Willy's throat, and he felt a stinging sensation. He gulped, which did not help, and said, desperately, "But I don't know anything! Really, Lady! Nothing!"

"Den ye are of no use to me," the female demonling said, those black eyes expressionless.

"Hey, now... uh, I can be! I can be!" Willy managed to stammer out. "I haven't heard anything, I mean, no one has said anything about no Dark Power coming up in this town, but everything comes through here sooner or later, Miss... I swear, I _swear_ you'll be the first to know if it does! Honest!"

One of the demon spawn's eyebrows lifted; her expression still skeptical.

"Crap... " Willy felt a sudden rush of warmth flow down his legs. And, crap again: he'd just pissed himself. Miss Demon Spawn Foldout '97 wrinkled her nose, her expression changing to one of disgust. "Ok, look... _all_ I know, I swear, and it might not even have _anything_ to do with _anything_, is that Trask has been having his thugs out looking for some mage that W&H supposedly sent here for some purpose a few weeks ago... "

"Trask? And dubya ehn aitch?"

"Uh... Trask, uh, vampire lord, works for the big guy here. And W&H: Wolfram and Hart, they're, uh - "

"I have heard of dem," the demon girl said. "De 'big guy' would be?"

"I don't _know_, lady! No one _knows_... he stays so far behind the scenes here that _no one _knows who he really is," Willy stammered. "Trask is the only face anyone sees, and him? Hell," Willy said, "Even _Spike _doesn't mess with him."

"And dis Spike would be?"

"Uh... " damn, what name did Spike go by when he was running with the Scourge of Europe, anyway? Damn damn damn... aha! "William! William the Bloody!"

"Him I have heard of, also."

The flat black eyes studied him. Willy did his level best to look trustworthy. Not a hard task, he was telling the God's honest truth now, and damn the consequences anyway. The lovely face gave an abrupt nod, and she said, "Where can I find dis Spike?"

"Oh, gods, lady," Willy said, "You _don't_ want to find _him_. He's bad news... "

"Your concern is touching," she said. "Where?"

"The old factory! In the industrial district on Harlingen!"

The sword edge went away from Willy's throat so abruptly that he wouldn't have noticed except for the fact that the demon girl was wiping the flat and the edge clean on Willy's shirt front. She let him go, stepping back, and Willy had to grab the edge of the shelf to keep from collapsing into a puddle.

His own puddle, actually. Eww, yuck.

"You are not lying dis time," she said, looking more than a bit smug.

"Well, yeah, I mean, no! I'm not," Willy said, nodding like a bobble head doll.

And he wasn't... Ok, so Spike would be pissed at him if this thing paid him a visit and he and Drusilla survived it. And yeah, Wolfram and Hart _really_ took a dim view of people discussing them and their business. And Wilkins took an even dimmer view, uh, not that Willy had actually _mentioned_ Wilkins by name... But none of them were _here_ and she was.

And a _live _Willy could figure out a way to wriggle out from under, staying alive in the process. A suddenly _dead_ Willy was beyond wriggling.

"One last question, den," the female demon stated, "And dis one is for, how you say, all de marbles?" Willy nodded frantically, waiting... "How did de last Slayer here die?"

Huh? Why the hell did she want to... Willy shrugged, and said, "Nest, uh, Heinrich Nest, the Master? He supposedly did for her when she went down to his lair to kill him and stop him from opening the Hellmouth? Rumor has it, anyway... before Angelus and that kid stopped him finally... "

Demon girl nodded, and said, "Again, you are not lying dis time," cutting him off before he had a chance to babble out that apparently, rumors were wrong and Summers hadn't died down there. "But I did," she said, "And one more: where is the place of de Watcher of the former Slayer here?"

"Uh... Rupert Giles?" Willy blinked at her, and said, "He works at the high school library? Sunnydale High, southeast of downtown about a mile?"

"All right," she said, cocking her head and giving him such a cold and lethally intent study that any words at all dried up in Willy's throat. His knees nearly buckled again... "Your life is mine, from _my_ hand. I own you now. Anything you _do_ hear, when _next_ I come, you will tell."

"Sure, sure, kid," Willy said, "No problem... "

He trailed off, noticing that he was suddenly talking to thin air and the door of the Alibi Room was closing behind a block of empty.

Damn, she was good at that. Batman could take lessons from her.

* * *

.


	7. All the World's a Stage

**Chapter Six: All the World's a Stage...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sunnydale High School Library, Early Evening – _

"I _thought_ I would find you in here, Rupert!"

Jenny Calendar's voice rang out sharply through the library, causing Rupert Giles to jump and fumble a handful of catalog cards, sending them flying in all directions.

"Good lord!" he said, glancing down in consternation at the scatter of cards that he had just finished meticulously putting in order, and sighing. He reached up absently to find his glasses askew and hanging from one ear. Removing them completely, he sighed again, and turned.

"Good lord," he said, again, fumbling at the glasses and nearly dropping them.

Jenny Calendar smiled broadly at him, dropped him a curtsy, and said, "No, but thank you for playing. Not God or deity, merely Jenny Calendar, computer teacher extraordinaire. Or, perhaps at the moment," she twirled in place to allow him a good luck at her, uh, outfit, "Jhennai of the Sands, Barbarian Warrioress Extraordinaire!"

"Uh, um, ah... " Giles managed, somehow, to close his mouth and rather absently began to wipe his already spotless glasses. He somehow managed to quite forget to find a cloth, first...

"Wow. I've rendered him speechless, and stammering even," Jenny said, teasingly.

"Ah, um," Giles managed to refrain from letting out a loud harrumph! Speechless indeed. He was not, he was merely... uh...

Jenny Calendar was wearing, or, rather, not wearing in some areas, a rather bizarre and revealing outfit comprised of a narrow strapped and low cut top of some sort of gold trimmed, dark brown leather material that pushed up and emphasized her, um, well, yes... and clung to her slender waist before it met a brown leather and gold trimmed paneled and metal studded skirting. Beneath that, a long, highly slit dark brown skirt with gold trim fell between her, um, very long and darkly tanned legs almost to her calves. Said calves rather enticingly encased within the crisscrossing straps of a pair of brown and gold open and medium heeled sandals... gold trimmed paneled and metal studded flaps were also attached to the narrow shoulder straps, giving a rough approximation of some sort of, uh, very ineffective armoring over the shoulders.

She had her dark hair loose and swept back with a golden circlet keeping it back from her face, and a broad, ornate gold belt holding a scabbard for a short sword at one hip. A faux Gladius, the scholar in Giles noted, rather absently. But not anywhere near authentic. Well, neither was the costume... Jenny currently now had one foot up on the seat of a chair, displaying said long, very tanned legs and calves to good effect.

Certainly not speechless. Giles was merely startled by this apparition. Yes, that was it. Startled. And, uh, blushing furiously apparently, from the heat he was feeling in his face and neck. And, uh, elsewhere.

"Uh, umm, can I-I u-uh help you?" Giles managed to stammer out.

Jenny rolled her eyes, flashing a white grin at him, and tossed her hair. "Well, not if you're going to be like that about it. And do wipe the drool from your chin, Rupert. It's flattering but unbecoming."

"I am _not_ drooling," Giles said, straightening indignantly. Jenny's grin turned into a definite smirk as he reached up to check, apparently not surreptitiously enough.

Oh dear lord, he _was_ drooling.

"Ahem. Uh, what, may I ask, are you doing here?" Giles said, with as much dignity as he could muster. "And in that, uh, that that... getup?"

"Getup?" Jenny raised her eyebrows at him, still smirking. "Oh, dear. You really have _been_ submerged in books too long. It's a costume, Rupert. Y'know. For _Halloween_?"

"Yes yes, I am _quite_ aware of the holiday, Jenny," Giles said. He noticed that he'd been trying to clean his glasses with his bare hand, sighed, and located his handkerchief. First to wipe his chin with, and then for his now horribly smudged lenses.

"Of course you are," Jenny said. "That's why you're in here playing with file catalogs."

"I am not playing," Giles said, starting to feel a bit exasperated as well as flustered. "I- I merely do not feel a need to dress myself up in some ridiculous, uh, frippery and go out gallivanting about."

"Ridiculous, huh?" Jenny arched her eyebrows at him again, and folded her arms under her breasts, pushing them up even farther.

Giles gulped. Judging from the heat in his cheeks, it apparently really _was_ possible for him to blush even deeper. And to feel even more embarrassed and out of sorts... "Well, I- I certainly d-didn't mean you, of course," he managed to say. "You look very lovely in that, uh, whatever you're dressed as."

"Why thank you, kind sir. And I _told_ you: I am a barbarian warrior princess, fresh from the Arenas of Rome," she said, her eyes laughing at him. "Where only a man who can defeat me in combat can even _hope_ to sample my, umm," she pushed her chest out a bit more, "Charms."

"Ah, yes, umm... and, uh, very lovely charms," Giles said.

"Flatterer. Silver tongued devil."

"It is hardly an authentic looking gladiator costume – " Giles said, breaking off in horror as he felt his inner pedant come out despite himself.

"Oh, poo," Jenny said, rolling her eyes. "It's not meant to be, you, you... fuddy-duddy. Jeeze. It is _meant_ to be decorative. And eye catching. And to make one's man of the moment drool all over himself wanting to tear it off."

"I am _not_ a fuddy-duddy," Giles said, straightening indignantly. "And it, well, certainly does manage to do all of those things. Quite, err, well, actually." Actually, it was the _contents_ in the packaging that managed to do all of those things.

What was it that Buffy had been attempting to tell him earlier? That Jenny considered him an, uh, umm., 'hottie'? No, 'babe', that was it... Giles brightened somewhat.

"See?" Jenny flashed him an absolutely marvelous grin. And leaned forward a bit, flashing him a rather even more enticing view. "You really can come out of the dark ages long enough to pay an attractive girl a compliment."

"I'll have you know that in the middle ages, men were quite flowery in describing the charms of ladies they found attractive," Giles said.

"Really?" Jenny's grin went slightly predatory, or perhaps that was merely his imagination. "Do tell. At length, preferably," she said, straightening and bringing her foot down from the chair bottom. "In _fact_, you'll have ample occasion while you're escorting me to the Staff Halloween Party. Now."

"I- I, um, what?"

"The Staff Halloween Party? As in, all of the student escorts just left, and now it is time for the... "

"The, uh, the Staff Halloween Party, yes yes, I heard you," Giles said, nodding. "What I am at a loss for is exactly _what_ that has to do with _me_?"

"_You_ are escorting me there," Jenny said. "As I just told you."

"I have no intention of going to some, some, uh, boring and stuffy staff mixer. I have far too much... "

"It's mandatory."

"Much work – It's _what?_" Giles blinked at her.

"Man-da-tor-y," Jenny said. "As in, compulsory. As in, you _must_ go. Snyder's orders."

"But, but... but, I- I, ah... "

"Don't tell me, let me guess: you didn't read the staff memo."

Somehow, Jenny had managed to slink up to where she was standing right in front of him looking up, her, uh, chest armor only a half a foot from touching his suit front. "A-a-apparently not," Giles said, flushing again. "But I- I don't even have a costume."

"Man-da-tor-y," Jenny said, reaching out for his arm. "And, sure you do. We'll tell them you're dressed as a librarian."

"I _am_ a librarian," Giles said, becoming increasingly bemused.

"See?" Jenny grinned. "It has the virtues of verisimilitude. Come on, Rupert, it'll be fun," she said. "We'll eat bad party food, dance a bit, and listen to Snyder make a hilariously boring speech." Taking him by the arm, she started pulling him toward the front of the library.

"But but but... oh, very well," Giles said, sighing. He put his glasses back on.

"_That's_ the spirit. If you're daring enough to break past my defenses, you can even steal a kiss while we're dancing," Jenny said, laughing. "I _may_ even let you cop a feel, if you're a sufficiently bad boy."

"I'll have you know that I am never a bad boy," Giles said, starting to smile in spite of himself.

"Oh. A pity, that."

"I shall attempt to rise to the occasion."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sheffield Drive, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

"All right, troops, form up!" Xander Harris grinned as his gaggle of nine to eleven year olds obediently lined up and came to some semblance of attention. "Present... bags!" A line of Halloween candy satchels came forward, open and tilted forward for inspection.

Damn, but he was actually having fun here, something he really hadn't expected. Of course, he'd always kind of liked kids, and had always gotten along pretty well with them.

Willow and Buffy said that that was mostly because he was less than one step removed from being nothing but a larger, taller eight year old himself. Maybe so...

Xander kind of figured that it was because he _liked_ kids, and he _understood_ kids. Kids were simple, and reasonably uncomplicated, compared to adults and teenagers. They related to someone who could discus comic books, video games, and Saturday Morning and afternoon cartoons with the best of them, and to people who took them seriously and didn't talk down to them.

And more importantly, people who _listened_ to them and didn't treat them like it was an inconvenience or like they were stupid and ignorant.

He'd actually learned that from his dad, and from Cordy's dad, way back when they were kids, amazingly enough. Back before the miscarriage and things went bad and his parents drew into themselves and started fighting all the time, rather than joking and snarking the way he and Cordy used to. And back before Cordy's dad got all wrapped up in business and appearances and quit having time for kids and frivolousness.

Like, way back before the ice ages...

Oh, well. Xander went along the line of bags with a critical eye, paying special attention to the upper layers. "All right, good... good... good... man, well done!" He grinned down at his little fellow soldier, and snapped a sharp salute. "Well done, Private Sergeant Cookie!"

The little girl in the tiny WAC suit beamed up at him and snapped the salute back smartly.

"Ok, now, Private Buttercup, what did I tell you?" He frowned at the little Princess's bag.

"Umm. Only resort to tears as an absolute last resort?" the little girl blinked up at him, sniffling slightly.

"Right. And I'll tell you why: it's because, otherwise, they know you're faking and they turn on yas," Xander said. "You gotta be careful with adults: too smarmy, and it turns them off. Think Eddie Haskell," he got too many blank looks at that one, and he waved it off, "Never mind. And too schmaltzy, and they go all curmudgeon on yas, especially the ones our parent's age. Older women are your best bet for tears. Think Grandma at Christmas." There was a long line of nods.

Xander rummaged in his own bag, and found a Snickers bar. He dropped it into Buttercup's bag, getting a huge smile back for it. Cool. "No worries, Princess. Sergeant Hicks _always_ has your back. What's the slogan now?"

"We take care of our own! Ooh rah!" the kids chorused at him.

"Damn right we do," Xander said, grinning. That got a round of giggles from them; an adult saying damn like they were adults and troopers right along with him. He began rummaging through his bag, and looked up, "All right, who all got crap?"

A line of hands went up, and he went along the row, dropping chocolate bars into bags.

"Ah! Not you, Private Bucky," Xander said, "_You_ got a Hershey bar at that last house. No working scams on your troop Sergeant, 'cause the DI has seen 'em all. Believe me."

The little kid in the Bucky outfit scowled at him, and shuffled his feet. Xander tossed a mini bag of Reese's Pieces in his bag. "Shape up, kid. You won't get anywhere in this man's army by scamming the brass, no sir. _Especially_ not when the brass works for a living."

That got a grin and a chorus of giggles.

He, Buffy, and Willow had more kids than the other groups, since Larry flaked out and skipped out before line up. Snyder, _naturally_, picked on his favorite butt monkeys and punching bags for the extra hellions. Which gave him, not counting in his Foraging Team Leader, Corporal Benjy (Beverly) Sheridan, two full squads of eight each plus one, and a kind of raggedy long squad of ten plus assorted soldier girls, faeries, devil girls, cat girls, and adventurers. And a sheepish kid in werewolves clothing.

Xander had done some hasty horse trading with a few other teens escorting kids that he knew, and traded off little monsters, vampires, and demons – as many as he could – for _their_ military themed kids. Counting his troop leader, Benjy, his little platoon had nine little soldiers, Generals, and Admirals scattered out amongst the other thirty odd. And a little Bucky Barnes, sans Captain America, but _with_ a shield.

He did a quick head count to make sure he hadn't losted anyone. Yup, thirty-five assorted Troopers. Damn near a full platoon. He was pleased to see his Foraging Team Leader doing a similar count, muttering under her breath and looking cutely serious for a diminutive eleven year old.

Looking around at the gathering gloom, Xander pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch. Five oh eight PM, according to Mickey. Twilight was just starting to come in as the last of the red was slowly dropping down past the Palisades, far to the south. Up Sheffield and a block away, he could see Buffy leading her troop around the corner and up Dhalia Street, with Willow and her group straggling out of Guava Drive and onto Sheffield. Good.

Heh. Buffy was good with kids, too, interestingly. She had her group in smart order, and all of them skipping along with her chanting something. She threw him a wide smile from way up the block, and a jaunty wave before they made the turn.

Much better than Willow. Will tended to forget that not everyone was as big on school and Discovery Channel as she was, and talked over kid's heads too often. She also came off as too adult, most times, unless Xander was with her to loosen her up and bring out her inner six year old. Ah well, except for the fact that her pack was strung out over a third of a block, she looked like she was managing. She waved also, stopping to let her stragglers catch up.

Xander snapped back a salute, and then turned back to his kids. "All right troop, we got time left to clean up out here before heading back to base. Now, it's getting dark, which means it's time to remember Rule Numbah One. Who can tell me what Rule Numbah One is at night?"

Private Princess Buttercup raised a hand, and said, "Stick together?"

"Right!" Xander beamed at her. "Private Devila? Can you elaborate on Private Buttercup's response?"

"Sure!" the little red velvet dressed small demon girl said, grinning up at him. "Stick together, watch out for, and take care of the others, Tech-sergeant!" Private Kitty Kat, Private Princess Wicked, and Private Pooka Bell nodded seriously, and Private Princess Buttercup stuck her tongue out at them and then giggled.

Grinning, Xander asked, "And can anyone tell me why?"

"Because the Enemy likes to pick off stragglers, Tech-sergeant!" Private Bucky said, looking serious.

"You got it, Kid," Xander said, nodding. "Which means that _you_ just earned a field promotion, _Corporal_ Bucky. You know what that means?"

"Uh... " Bucky's eyes got wider under his mask, and he said, "It's better than Private First Class, Tech-sergeant?"

"Right," Xander said, squatting down to eye level with them. "Because it means that you're next in command after the Squad Leader. _Next_, because _First_ _Sergeant_ Benjy outranks you by one," the former Corporal Benjy stuck her tongue out at Bucky, getting a scowl in return. "And because it gets you more responsibility. Now, what's the reward for a job well done in this man's army?"

"Another freaking job, Tech-sergeant!" everyone chorused.

"Right!" Xander grinned, reflecting that the parents of these kids were probably gonna want words with him after his kids came home saying damn, freaking, and heck right and left like little sailors... oh well. They were having fun, and _that_ was what counted.

"Hey! Why did Corporal _Benjy_ get promoted?" the question came from little Simone Deveaux, aka Private General Sherman.

Xander said, "Because she was already Squad Leader as a Corporal, and Squad Leaders have to outrank their second in command, right?" The Private General looked dubious, but nodded at him anyway. "And since she's First Squad, that means she's also Troop Leader of the Foragers, and she has to have the rank for it."

First Sergeant Benjy beamed at him, grinning from ear to ear.

"Ok, any more questions?" Xander said, looking at everyone. "Because remember: there _are_ no silly questions, only silly answers from the Tech-sergeant!" There were giggles all around at that, and a lot of head shaking. "All right, we're burning daylight. In fact, we've _almost_ burned it all up. So that means..."

"More raids of more houses for more candy, uh... supplies and informal requisitions, I mean?" Private Cagney, his little machine gun toting Gangster Moll asked.

"Yup," Xander said. "All right. We have a bit more than fifty-five minutes left on our patrol, and our patrol route takes us... " he thought for a minute, counting and adding up houses and stops in his head, and said, "Down Imojin Parkway, onto Second Avenue, along Tenth, and up Ruby Street to Locust before we head up Seventh and then over to get back to base. Can everyone remember that?"

There were nods from everyone.

"All right. Corporal?" he looked at the newly minted First Squad Corporal, and said, "You have drag. That means that your job is to keep an eye on everyone and make sure no one gets separated." Corporal Bucky nodded seriously at him, and he added, "It's a tough job, but I have high confidence in you." Xander grinned, and said, sharply, "Platoon Sergeant Benjy?"

The little girl straightened so fast he could have sworn he heard her spine crackle. "Yes Tech-sergeant!"

"You have point," Xander said, still grinning. "That means it's your job to watch street signs and make sure we're on route, and to keep an eye out for hostiles to the front of the squad. Think you can handle that?"

"Sir! Yes Tech-sergeant!"

"Good girl," Xander said, nodding seriously. "All right everyone, Buddy System after dark. Watch the man – or woman – next to you, and take care of each other. You all remember what to do if anyone straggles or gets separated from the Squad?"

"Yes, Tech-sergeant!"

Xander looked them over, picked a quieter girl in a little stylized US Navy officers uniform who hadn't said much, and said, "Yes, Private Admiral Mayhem?"

"Uh, we find a streetlight and stand under it and wait until the Tech-sergeant sees we're missing and comes back for us, uh, sir?" she ventured.

"Yup. Excellent! There's a bright future for you in the Army of the Resistance, Admiral," Xander said, winking at her. "Tech-comm is always looking for leaders, and I have my eye on you. Now, form up!" Whoulps, Willow _had_ lost a few stragglers after all. A little devil boy, a kid in a Peter Rottentail outfit, a Japanese Pop Princess, another Kid-wolf, a tiny Beetlejuice, and a kid in a red and black Wicked Jester outfit that made Xander suppress a shiver. Way too close to a clown for his tastes. And a couple of others. Little monsters, literally.

The _things_ some people let their kids dress up as, sheesh.

Ah well, the more the merrier. He could always hook back up with Will and give her her missing troops back after she hit panic mode and ran around amusing the rest of her kids. Meanwhile... he paused long enough to let them straggle in, gave them the 'safety in numbers and keep close' briefing, and to scatter them amongst his squads.

Afterward, he stood, and waited as his troop all lined up in pairs, Bucky at the rear, and Benjy at the front. "Now, for-_ward_... Harch! Let's didi-mau, which is soldier speak for: get the heck outta here!"

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Ethan's Costume Emporium, Early Evening 5:00pm – _

Sitting in the middle of an elaborate casting circle, Ethan Rayne bowed slightly to the bust of Janus at the point of the design representing the altar. Straightening, he closed his eyes, muttering under his breath in Latin, and pressed his hands together, wincing as he pulled them apart with suddenly opened wounds in each palm, bleeding freely.

Wounds that hadn't been there a moment before...

Still in Latin, Ethan intoned, "The world that denies thee, thou inhabit."

He dabbed the blood in his left palm with his right forefinger, and drew a line with it from above his left eyebrow down across the eyelid and onto his left cheekbone.

"The peace that ignores thee,..."

He repeated the gesture, dabbing the blood from his right hand with his left middle finger and smeared it over his right eyelid, in a near identical but slightly asymmetrical pattern.

" ...thou corrupt," Ethan finished.

Dabbing the blood from his left hand with his right middle finger again, he smeared a cross onto his forehead.

"_Chaos_," Ethan said, still speaking in archaic Latin, "I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate son."

Rayne drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he felt Power, capital 'P', coil and build within him. He repeated the breath exercise as the sudden rush of energy threatened to overwhelm him, until he had it under control. Mostly.

One never actually _controlled_ Chaos. The notion was the ultimate contradiction in terms. A primal energy of the universe, Chaos was _never_ controlled, only cajoled, channeled, invoked, and occasionally, subverted.

All one really could do was shape it, release it, and attempt to ride the wave.

Riding the wave and surviving it was the mark of a skilled practitioner, and favored priest or priestess of Chaos.

He drew in another deep breath, and let it out slowly. This was the critical part. He had a few qualms over including and entreating Janus in this enchantment, for Janus was not truly a deity of _Chaos_, despite being in the same pantheon. Ethan merely hoped that that was enough, along with the God of Doorways lack of current worshipers, to incline him to favor this enterprise.

Ah well. Life, and magic, without risk, was not worth living.

"Janus, evoco vestram animam. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilio vestro. Veni, appare et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas," Ethan chanted, running the translation within his mind simultaneously as a slight barrier between himself and the energies he was attempting to channel. '_Janus, I invoke your spirit. Hear my plea. Seize the night for your own reason. Come, appear and show to us that which is infinite power..._'

Janus. Roman Greater God of Doorways and Portals. Beginning and Endings, Past and Future, Within to Without, Male to Female, Death and Life, and Youth to Age. God of Dualities, as well as Protector and Patron of Hearth and Homes.

Greater God of beginnings and transitions, whether abstract or concrete, sacred or profane. And they didn't get much more profane than this... but that particular aspect is what made Him necessary, nay, _essential_, to this enchantment.

Ethan Rayne had been hired to cast a spell that would bring forth the outer essence to the fore, suppressing the inner, and cause a gateway to open that would allow the aspect of the prepared and enchanted costumes and props to subsume the actual personality of the wearers and wielders and make the outer the reality. In the case of the props, the spell would, or at least should, cause the wearer to take on the aspect of whatever they'd had deepest in their mind when they assembled their personae.

Well, actually, he'd been _hired_ for something slightly different. But Wolfram and Hart hadn't been specific as to methods, and _how_ he went about it was up to _him_. The enchantment was certain to generate a ton of chaos, and make Ethan's patrons ecstatic. If it happened to destroy Rupert's Slayer and turn the souled vampire back to darkness in the process? Well...

That was just a nifty and profitable byproduct as far as Ethan was concerned. Even if it didn't, Wolfram and Hart couldn't very well complain that they hadn't gotten their money's worth. He _had_ stressed that Chaos was never a certain thing, and that if they wanted a mere _assassin_, they should leave him be and make contract with the Order of Taraka.

The young fellow who'd hired him hadn't seem pleased at that, but he also hadn't demurred. And he _had_ included the uncertainty clause and disclaimer that Ethan had insisted upon in the contract...

Ethan's main interest was in the challenge involved, as well as pleasing the elemental forces he served. That and catching the attention of Rupert Giles and annoying his old mate to no end... and, well, getting paid a bloody fortune as well as making a tidy profit from costume sales, of course.

Heh. It wasn't every day – or night – that one acquired near unlimited funding for a mere _prank_.

This would have been a _much_ less _elaborate_ and expansive prank without Wolfram & Hart's participation, and more importantly – their _funding_. Ethan alone couldn't have afforded a tenth of the costumes and props he'd managed to acquire for this. He might even have had to resort to clandestinely enchanting whatever random outfits he could gain access to at the three other costumes stores in this maudlin little burg, or, gads, have had to accept another purely for monetary gain contract to acquire similar funding.

Actually doing _work_ for a goal was so very mundane and plebian.

"Persona se corpum et sanguium commutandum est," Ethan said, and the candles at the outer edges of the circle dimmed, and then flared suddenly as the eyes of the two-faced bust flashed and began to glow. "Vestra sancta praesentia oncrescet viscera. Janus! Sume _noctem_!" Ethan's mind translated as he spoke, _'The mask transforms itself into flesh and blood. Your holy presence curdles the heart. Janus! Take the night!'_

A cold, breezeless wind drafted through the chamber at the back of the shop, and outside... a matching wind began to blow. He felt the power build to a crescendo within him, and a matching buildup of power within the bust of Janus, and the lines and sigils of the ritual circle. An exhilarating well of power, greater than he had ever felt before.

Chaos must be truly pleased to channel so much of Herself through him and his designs...

Ethan raised one hand, smiling broadly, opened his eyes in time to see the eyes of the bust flare once more, and said, "Showtime!" as he broke the circle with his ritual dagger.

Ethan Rayne felt an exhilarating, near orgasmic rush as the power came down, through, up, and flowed out from him, matching that which suddenly flared within and then blasted out from the bust of Janus. And thence, blasted outward from the circle in a wave that would soon spread across the entirety of the city of Sunnydale, California.

More power than he'd anticipated. Too much...

Ethan Rayne had just enough time to reflect that either something had gone drastically wrong in his estimation and preparations, or, perhaps, calling upon Janus for this prank might not have been such a good idea after all.

And then the power flared and consumed him in a burst of ecstasy, leaving a burned out husk in its wake, and a shattered bust of Janus with four still glowing eyes across from him.

* * *

A roiling wave of supernatural energy, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, swept outwards in a radius centered upon Ethan's Costume Emporium. Swept outward, across the immediate vicinity, and then across the entirety of the small city of Sunnydale, California, population 38,500, variable, and the County thereof.

And then it swept across, through, and into the fabric of time, space, and reality itself.

Ethan Rayne _had_ miscalculated in his estimations. But, he had _not_ miscalculated in including Janus, Greater God of Transitions in his plans and enchantment. Ethan's miscalculation was of a far more base and fundamental nature.

He had miscalculated precisely how much energy was required to transform flesh and blood into an implacable being from a future that had never ever been meant to exist in reality, and into the one man sent back to stop that being from carrying out its mission. He had also miscalculated, if it had even occurred to him, precisely how much energy was required to rewrite and alter the entire fabric of reality to create a world line, and a _time-line_, wherein such a thing was possible, and wherein it was possible for such a thing to _exist,_ even. And on the power needed for a few other things...

In all fairness, he could not have known about those other things.

Chaos, or the embodiment thereof, didn't care. She or It, was merely pleased to manifest, and to enjoy the sheer magnitude of the invocation of her nature that her creature had engineered.

Janus, Greater God of Doorways and Transitions... well, as far as _he_ was concerned, Ethan hadn't miscalculated at all. After all, one of the benefits of a polytheistic religion is having deities for all aspects of reality, and being able to call upon them for various needs. Gods within a pantheon are always happy to be called upon to help, and to fill in for a worshiper in a niche that that worshiper's own deity doesn't cover. Well, unless, of course, that worshiper belongs to one of that deity's enemies or rivals... which was not the case here.

Janus was _always_ pleased to fulfill the exact nature, and often the exact _letter_, of a request from a worshiper. It wasn't his problem if that other deity's worshiper hadn't quite considered all of the ins and outs, and ramifications of his or her actions...

When dealing with jealous and quirky beings of great power, be _very_ careful what you ask for, and how. You just might get it. In spades.

Showtime, indeed.

* * *

.


	8. and We Are Merely Players

_**Warning: **_This chapter contains scenes of non-consensual sex and violence.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: ...and We Are Merely Players**

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Early Evening 5:18pm – _

A roiling wave of supernatural energy, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, swept outwards in a radius centered upon Ethan's Costume Emporium. Outward, across the immediate vicinity, and then across the entirety of the small city of Sunnydale, California, population thirty-eight thousand five hundred, or thereabout, variable... and the County thereof.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Dhalia Street__, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

A cold, nearly freezing wind blew down the street, and Buffy Summers shivered. She looked around, suddenly apprehensive.

'_Ok, someone just walked over my grave_,' she thought to herself. '_And, my, what a strange and dismal mental image that is. Brr._' The weak joke didn't help: she still had a very bad feeling that something very wicked was coming her way.

And Buffy Summers had learned the hard way to pay attention to her instincts, especially when they started whispering about wicked things.

These instincts weren't whispering. They were screaming...

"Ok, kids, everyone be sure and stay close together," Buffy said to her group. Or, rather, started to say. The words never made it out of her mouth, and she never even noticed when her entire group of rug rats suddenly transformed into little monsters – real ones – little devils, little witches, tiny faeries, and small cowboys and Indians and scattered in all directions.

She swayed on her feet, her eyes closed tightly as a wave of vertigo hit her.

Princess Cinderella of the Realm of Buffonia, chimney sweep, hearth wench, and victim of an Evil Stepmother and several Wicked Stepsisters opened them again a minute or so later, looking around in wonder and dismay.

This didn't look like her cottage, or her village, and there certainly wasn't a Pumpkin Carriage anywhere in sight...

Nor did she see any Faerie Godmothers handy. Well, curses. _Never_ a faerie Godmother around when you needed one.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Guava Drive__, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

"Come on, kids!" Willow said. Despite herself, she was actually kind of having fun.

She led the way up onto Old Lady Carpenter's porch and gestured. One of the kids wearing a green monster mask on his head rang the bell and stepped back. After several minutes, and another ring or two, an old lady answered the door. The kid with the mask hastily pulled it down over his face.

"Now, now, hold on," Mrs. Carpenter said, "I'm not as spry as I used to be." She opened the door, looking out and down at them.

The kids chorused, "Trick-or-treat!" in a sort of ragged unison.

"Oh, my goodness," the old woman said, blinking at them. "Well, aren't you adorable!"

"Trick or treat!" the kid in the green monster mask, Tommy Jenkins, yelled. Mrs. Carpenter picked up her candy bucket and then shook it, looking uncertainly down into it.

"Oh! I could've sworn I had more candy... "

Willow suddenly started to feel weak as a cold wind blew across the porch, and up along the street. She stumbled back, clutching her chest as it suddenly became hard for her to breathe...

The kid wearing a red rubber cap with horns morphed into a horned, red skinned monster. The kid with the green mask changed into a monster also, growling suddenly as Willow slumped against the porch railing, looking alarmed.

"I'm sorry, mister monster," Mrs. Carpenter said, bending over, "Maybe I... "

Willow never saw the green monster kid grab the lady by the neck and begin to choke her, nor all of the other kids scream and run away. She had, by that point, slumped completely and fallen over the porch railing into the space between the shrubbery and the porch.

A few minutes later, Lady Willow of the Cliffs, haunter of Kingman's Bluff Parkway, stood and stepped out _through_ the bushes around the porch, looking curiously about her.

This wasn't where she usually appeared. But it _was_ the night of Samhain, she could tell... she could _feel_ the weakness and thinness of the boundaries between the world and the Ghost Roads.

Hmm. Well, _this_ was new and different.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __I__mojin Parkway near __Sheffield Drive, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

Xander Harris staggered suddenly, feeling weak, and... odd. _Very_ odd. Disoriented, and suddenly, oddly out of place.

"Uh, are you all right, Tech-sergeant?" Private Benjy asked, looking up at him worriedly.

"Yeah, I think so," Xander said. "Just, uh, gimme a minute."

"Hey! It's cold," one of the other kids said. "Brr!"

It was, all of a sudden. It was like an icy wind had blown down Imojin, up toward Sheffield and scattering leaves, papers, and bits of trash along in its wake.

"It'll pass, don't worry," Xander said... or started to say.

Nothing came out. Instead, he was wrenched by a surge of agonizing pain, and a bright, blueish white glow began to surround him. Sparks, and then coils of actinic blue-white electrical like energy spun and whirled around him, sending all of his troops scattering back and away, wide eyed.

There was a bright flash and –

– Xander was suddenly gone, as if he had never stood there at all.

* * *

___Friday, October 31, 1997_: Windjammer's Sports Bar, UCS Drive near Abrams, Sunnydale, Early Evening -

"Not really a well known fact, but there actually _were_ female pirates, y'know?" Joy Adams, Captain of the cheer leading squad said.

Chad Everette, current Captain of the Sunnydale Razorbacks junior varsity football team (the former Captain having fallen afoul of a Bar-B-Que fork murder), nodded and went, "Uh huh? Huh," and tried his best to look like he was paying attention. Considering that Joy looked especially hot tonight in her dark brown leather female swashbuckler outfit, and he was planning to do his best to get himself some of that tonight, he was actually trying pretty hard.

No matter _how_ bored he was with her current line of conversation... Oh well, At least he wasn't sitting by Lysette Torchio and trying to keep his eyes from glazing over while she talked cars at him nonstop. Better that she was sitting with Running Back Pernell Roberts, who actually _was_ a car buff himself. Lysette _was_ hot, but jeeze.

"Yep. Mary Reed and her female lover, and several others," Joy said. "They were even worse and more cutthroat than the men, too."

"Her _female_ lover, huh?" Chad said, waggling his eyebrows and looking between Joy and the also seriously hot looking Michelle Bradshaw, aka Pirate Saucy Morgan, sitting next to her. The brunette cheerleader was wearing a low cut pirate wench bustier and bodice thing that pushed her sizeable breasts up, and a very short black skirt that displayed _miles_ of tanned legs all the way down to her high black swashbuckler boots. No bra, either. Man, he'd love to be the meat in a sandwich between those two...

Joy thumped him lightly on the arm, and he recoiled in mock fear. "Trust _that_ to get your attention, pervert."

"Hey! Hot girl on girl pirate lovin'," Chad said, grinning at them. "What's not to love?" He brandished the hook on his right hand and said, "Arrgh. It's enough to raise me flag already, just thinkin' about it darlin'."

Michelle giggled, and Joy arched her eyebrows at him and said, "Hah! Thinking is as far as _you'll_ get, buster." Chad laughed, smirking. Then again...

There'd been rumors and speculation since Junior High about Joy and her long time friend Doreen Winderly. Chad glanced over to where the other long legged blonde, now Pirate Treasure for the night, was sitting in her long lavender coat and shorty pirate wench dress, with her high white stockinged legs crossed. She was currently talking to Cameron Walker, and Chad entertained a brief fantasy about her and Joy locked in a heated clinch, tongues working at each other.

Chad wrenched his mind back to the table and stuck his tongue out at Joy, and laughed, waggling his eyebrows. Michelle giggled again, and apparently had noticed his wandering gaze on her cleavage. She glanced away, reaching up to pat at her hair, and then leaned forward to grab a handful of beer nuts from the table's bowl, incidentally giving him an even better look down her bodice. Interesting...

On the other side of the small table, Michelle's slightly older sister Alicia shook her head, giving Michelle an amused look. Or, currently, the Dread Pirate Elise... Now _that_ one was the stuff _fantasies_ were made of, Chad thought. Several inches taller than Michelle, long black curly hair rather than Michelle's wavy dark brown, and with full tits just as large as her sister's, and ripe, pouting lips that just made you imagine them doing things to you. Such as, down on her knees doing things with them he'd only seen in porn movies. Or heard about Harmony Kendall doing...

"Oh yeah, anyway," Joy was saying. "Mary Reed hid herself as a man with her girlfriend, and they had a long, hot, steamy affair." She smirked at Chad's expression, and at the arched eyebrow look that Alicia gave her.

"You've obviously given this way too much study, Joy," Chad said. "Something we should know? Throw you a coming out party tonight, maybe?" Michelle and Alicia laughed, Alicia giving Joy an amused and almost speculative look.

"Hah! You wish!"

Looking around, he saw the rest of 'his crew' sprawled around various other tables enjoying themselves. He'd borrowed the idea of Harmony Kendall's dad's nautical themed party and managed to talk the cheerleaders – all of them except for Cordelia and her Cordettes – and the bulk of the Sunnydale Junior Varsity teams into doing pirate crew theme for the Bronze's annual Junior and Senior Costume Party and contest.

Too bad Larry Blaisdell had gotten there too late to get a pirate costume, but hey – shit happened when you screwed around and got there late. Even without Larry and the Cordettes, between the rest of the teams, Joy's cheerleaders, and a number of the Sunnydale High Junior Drill Team, they had a 'crew' of eighteen male scurvy dogs and twenty three female pirate wenches. And Chad thought he had a decent chance of getting laid later. If not by Joy, then maybe by Michelle – the curvy brunette had been laughing and giggling at most of his jokes all evening so far.

He looked across the tables and grinned. Lance Brooks might not even wait until later. He was currently surrounded by four of the bar's waitresses, all of them wearing abbreviated pirate wench outfits, or even shorter sailor dresses. Of course... Lance had been a serious pussy hound ever since he'd gotten that Letter Jacket of his...

So far, they hadn't actually made it to the Bronze yet. He'd suggested they all make a stop at a nautical themed college campus bar his older brother knew of that wasn't picky about ID. A few beers before they hit the Bronze with its notoriously tight ass bartenders would do them good...

And this place was pretty cool, too, he had to admit. They not only hadn't blinked at delivering a couple three pitchers of beer to his crew, but the Windjammer was currently running a Pirates and Salty Dogs theme night. All of the wait staff – and all of it hot – was wearing seriously sexy sailor wench and pirate gal costumes that left very little to the imagination. One cute little oriental waitress he'd flirted with when they'd sat down had confided that the manager had ordered all of the outfits from that Ethan's place his crew had shopped at, and told them they _had_ to wear them.

Good for him, Chad was thinking, right when the wave of chaos energy hit and swept through the bar, transforming everyone who had purchased a costume or a prop from Ethan's...

Arrgh. Captain Ezekiel Hook shook off the sudden wave of dizziness that had come over him, and eyed his ale stein dubiously. For such a weak brew, this stuff apparently sneaked up on one. Glancing around the tavern, he saw the rest of his crews doing the same.

"Arr!" he yelled, "Drink up, lad and lassies, this horse piss is better than it seemed, it seems." Laughter broke out, and several of the men hastened to pour themselves refills. "We've hot work to be done this night before we're due back at the Blood Wind, so drink up and let's be about it!"

A ragged chorus of cheers broke out, and steins and swords were hoisted in an impromptu toast to that.

As he took a quick inventory of his lads – and lassies – his eye fell on the busty charms of fellow pirate lass Saucy Morgan next to his leather clad second in command. Damn his eyes, but he'd been wanting to sample a bit of that bounty for some time, now... and no time like the present, he mused. Grinning, Ezekiel Hook reached across and grabbed the wench by one slender, tanned wrist, incidentally knocking Lady Joy off her seat and sprawling onto her shapely rear.

Standing, he hauled the brunette up from her chair, blocking her attempt at a slap with his left hook hand, and twisting her right arm up behind her.

"Belay that guff, wench!" Hook snarled, "Don't be a sassing your Captain when he's about his lawful privileges." Reaching around, he yanked down the top of the ruffled bodice top with his hook, exposing those gorgeous breasts to his view, and stretching or breaking the laces in the process. She screamed and tried to twist away, subsiding when he twisted the captive arm farther. Hook shoved her down onto her stomach on the nearby table top, and held her in place with the edge of his hook to the back of her neck.

"Be a darling now, and free me mainmast for some sportin', wouldja?" he tossed over his shoulder to Lady Joy, now picking herself back up off the floor. She grinned viciously, and reached down to comply, bringing him out to the open air, and giving him a couple of priming pumps for good measure.

Roughly, Joy shoved Morgan's tiny skirt up while he held her down, and ripped away the frippery underneath. Then she gripped him again, positioning him properly. "Whenever you're ready, Senior Captain," Joy said, smirking.

Hook grinned at her, moving in to plant his flag. Saucy made a gasping arch under him, and an outraged squalling sound. She made more of them, along with little cries, as he found a rhythm and began sporting with her in earnest.

Joy looked over at the horrified looking Pirate Elise, the girl's ripe red mouth a near perfect O of surprise. "What's your problem, crew woman?"

"But, the captain!" Elise said, and "Morgan! She- she's a crew member, not some captive!"

"What, you think female crew are above serving their officers properly, wench?" Joy asked, those hard green eyes narrowing.

"Well, no, but... "

Lady Joy slapped the wench, hard. Elise stepped back, her mouth making an O again with a hand coming up to her reddened cheek, and her eyes wide and shocked. Joy drew her hangar, and reached with her other hand to relieve the other woman pirate of her pistol and cutlass, throwing them to the side. "On your knees, crew woman, and undo me breeches," Joy said, smirking. She put the hangar to the girls throat, and, slowly, the other young woman knelt and began to comply.

This should be fun to watch, Ezekiel Hook thought. Lady Joy was a lovely thing, but hard as nails, and her proclivities were known to all of the crew. There'd long been rumours about what she and Pirate Treasure got up to in Lady Joy's quarters. All of them had heard, apparently, except for this one... As much as the men might lust after that curvy form and those pouting lips framed by that mass of blonde curls, Joy was too good with a sword or pistol for any of them to try _their_ chances.

All around them, he saw other members of the crew doing similarly, and availing themselves of the charms of the Tavern's serving wenches. Both male and female crew members... more than a few of the lassies apparently shared Joy's interests in a curvy wench.

Some of the charms sampled were willing, some of them, not so much. He noticed that Pirate Treasure was sprawled back in her chair with her legs spread and one hand fisted in the hair of a kneeling serving wench, a saucy dark haired oriental in a tiny sailor's dress. She had her short skirt hiked up, and was currently forcing the wench's head between her legs. _Apparently_ the rumours were true... the wench didn't look willing, but no matter: Treasure had one of her pistols in her _other_ hand, playing with it idly and slowly running her tongue along the ramrod. Even as he watched, Hook saw Pirate Mitch kneel behind the wench and begin applying _his_ ramrod to the girl. Shaping up to be a hell of a shore party, Hook thought, smirking.

They did have work to do, he thought, grinding into the lass before him and pinning her hips against the table edge as she squirmed, but no matter. Plenty of time before midnight when they had to be back with whatever captives and plunder they'd been able to assemble. First, he was going to thoroughly enjoy his crew mate here, and maybe a couple of the Tavern's slatterns while he was at it. Or maybe even the lovely lass currently applying that rich mouth to the moaning Joy...

_Then_ he'd see to being about the Admiral's business.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: South McElhaney Avenue, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

Jonathan Levinson took a deep breath, and stepped confidently into the street in preparation for crossing it. Well, he _hoped_ it looked confident. To him, it felt kind of shaky.

Probably because it was shaky.

Crap. Too late to turn back now, he told himself firmly. And what's the worst that can happen? You'll get laughed at, teased, made fun of, snarked at by some of the girls, snubbed, and maybe shoved around by a jock or two.

Basically, a typical day at Sunnydale High School, and an all too normal day in the life of Jonathan Levinson. Not like _that_ was anything to be afraid of.

Sighing, he crossed the street and headed across the main strip parking lot at the front toward the doors of the Bronze, the distance seeming to get farther every step, rather than shorter. And crap again, dammit.

He had a _good_ costume this year. He'd blown most of his birthday money on buying that WWII uniform and the props for it. Ok, so maybe it wasn't one hundred percent authentic, and all of the insignia wasn't quite right, but it was _close_. Not like anyone here except him, and maybe Harris would notice the discrepancies. He'd even added his old Crosman M1 carbine BB rifle on a sling over his shoulder, in addition to the air soft Thompson submachinegun in his hand and the air soft 1911 in his web holster.

And he'd made a big deal of borrowing his Dad's lovingly restored classic Buick Roadmaster Riviera to go out with for the night, after promising and swearing on his own life to bring it back unscratched. If he turned around and went back, his dad would...

Well, he wouldn't _do_ anything. He'd just look at Jonathan, sigh heavily, take back the keys and go back to his newspaper as Jonathan slunk back up to his room.

Screw it. You only die once.

And, maybe, just maybe, he'd win the Junior-Senior Best Costume, and maybe even have a girl or two talk to him. Or dance with him.

Ummm... a girl _other_ than Amy, whom he'd known since grade school and who was close to being his only real friend. Not that there was anything wrong with Amy. He kind of liked Amy.

Sigh. He was doomed. Oh well. He pushed back his GI helmet, squared his shoulders, and marched on. Might as well meet his doom as bravely as the costume he'd patterned off of a _real_ hero.

A cold, icy wind blew through the parking lot, and the lights and neon of the Bronze wavered briefly before his eyes. For a moment, Jonathan felt weak and almost faint. Then he felt disoriented. And then he staggered and then he felt nothing at all.

"What the _Hell_... ?"

Corporal Audie Murphy, United States Army, late of the Army of Liberation of Europe, looked around himself. Ok, this was _not_ France, and this was definitely _not_ a burning tank destroyer he was standing on. Matter of fact, it looked and felt like asphalt. And instead of the spade grips of a fifty caliber Browning Ma Deuce, his right and left hands were suddenly clenched around the pistol grip and fore-end of a M1927 Thompson A1 submachinegun. Uh... the civilian, gangster type, with the fifty round drum, not the military stick magazine type.

And that for _damned_ sure looked like a bar across the parking lot from him.

Good thing, that, actually. He suddenly felt a massive need for a drink. Or maybe three.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Abandoned Factory on North Russett Avenue, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

"You're not going out are you, my Spoike?" Drusilla asked, her eyes wide and her voice sounding thick with alarm.

"Well, of course I am, pet," Spike said. He turned away from the group of minions he was leading out, and looked at her curiously. "Didn't you just tell me yesterday that everything's switching? Outside to inside and all that rot? Making the Slayer all weak so I can 'ave my way with 'er for you?"

"Everything has changed now, Spoike," Drusilla said, swaying dreamily, her eyes dark and distant. "It's all gone insides to outwards, masks to faces, and all entrails on us."

"That's lovely, Pet," Spike said, "Did you 'ave another vision?"

When Drusilla said nothing, just stood there swaying, clutching her doll, and gazing dreamily off into the far distance, he shrugged and smiled at her.

"Well, top of the evening and all. I'm off to kill a Slayer," Spike said turning away, and looked to his minions, "You lot, with me."

With a flourish of his long coat and a flash of bright hair, he swept out into the night trailed by the other dozen or so vampires.

"Ohh, Spoike," Drusilla said. "And you will. Just not the Slayer you intend. Miss Edith has said that all of the stars have fallen and the Night Slayer is here for you, and now nothing will ever be the same." She sighed. "Brambles and roses, all fall down." Shaking her head, Drusilla pulled a dead, dry rose from a vase, rather enjoying the pricks from the thorns. "All the toy soldiers are marching, Miss Edith says, and now all the stars are confused and quite put out. And none of the King's Men will be able to cope once you go down the Rabbit Hole."

Shifting mood as suddenly as quicksand, Drusilla brightened. "Oh, well. Do bring me back a small bite, Spoike. I'm all peckish."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: North 12th Street near Sheffield, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

Humming under her breath along with the radio, Aura Breckenridge leaned over to turn the volume down a bit, glancing over to the passenger seat at her date.

"So, what are you supposed to be again?" she said, looking at him curiously. "Lon Chaney Half Back or something?"

Blayne Moll had on a wolf-man mask and gloves with realistic looking fur, and rather wicked looking claws on the gray furred hands. Or maybe paws – didn't wolves have paws? Over and around that, he had a t-shirt, ragged blue jeans (with more fur showing through), a Razorbacks letterman jacket (that he had to have borrowed from someone), and a pair of red, high top Converse sneakers.

"Teen Wolf, Sunnydale style!" Blayne said, a bit too cheerfully. "Like in the TV show?"

"Ah. Uh huh," Aura glanced down at her jaguar patterned Wicked Wildcat Costume and snickered. "Well, that doesn't bode well for our date. We should get along like cats and dogs then."

"Hey, in that outfit and looking like that?" Blayne sounded like he was leering under the mask. Probably at her legs. "More like the Wolf and Red Riding Hood."

"Uh huh. I thought the Wolf tried to _eat_ Red Riding Hood," Aura said.

"Hey, sounds good to me," Blayne said. She figured if his mask was off, he'd be waggling his eyebrows. "You _look_ good enough to eat," he said, his voice thick with innuendo on the 'eat'.

"In your dreams, Buster," Aura said. "And if you _have_ dreams about that, _don't_ tell – "

A cold breeze blew across the car, making her wish she'd put the convertible's top up. Brrr. A brief chill, that she could almost swear had nothing to do with the cold wind, swept along her spine...

And a ragged growl from the passenger seat jerked her away from finishing that sentence, and whipped her head around. A growl that didn't sound like a goofy wanna be jock _playing_ at being a wolf...

She'd heard her dad's Irish Wolfhound make a sound like that, once or twice, when he'd sensed something that suddenly made him announce to the world at large that he was _not_ playing. All low in the chest and throat, and sounding suddenly like something that really _did_ hunt and kill wolves for a living, not the amiable shaggy lump she grew up playing with.

Aura abruptly found herself wishing that she had Lord Buckles, her dad's wolfhound, in the back seat.

A hundred and fifty pounds of shaggy gray fur and huge wolf rending teeth didn't sound like a bad thing, right about now. In fact, it sounded seriously warm and comforting. Too bad Buckles was more than twelve blocks away, back at home...

That wasn't a mask Blayne was wearing any longer. No furry, latex mask had real black lips and a bright red tongue that _moved_. No one wearing a mask had hot red eyes, nor a real looking muzzle with a wet nose and finger length ivory fangs, and strings of real drool slavering down from the teeth.

Aura screamed as Blayne, or the thing that used to be Blayne, twisted in his seat and turned toward her, one clawed and now over large hand reaching for her.

Closing her eyes, she did the only thing she could think of: she turned the wheel sharply to the right, stomped on the gas –

– and slammed the convertible into the back end and rear side panel of a parked car.

_She_ had on a seat belt and a driver's side air bag.

The Blayne thing did not.

There was a wrenching, booming, shattering crash, and she jolted in her seat as the world suddenly went white in front of her. Before the air bag even started to deflate, still screaming, she was already scrabbling for the buckle of the seat belt and shoving herself up and out toward the top of the driver's side door.

As she hit the street on the outside of the car and turned to run, she saw the Blayne Thing dazedly attempting to pick itself up off of the hood of the car, half out through the hole it had left in the shattered windshield.

Oh, crap. Daddy was gonna _kill_ her for wrecking mom's car...

Aura didn't wait to see if the Blayne Thing was going to succeed in picking itself up. She assumed it would, and ran like hell.

Still screaming.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: West Ocean Way near Sundowner Street, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

Tooling along in his Chrysler LeBaron en route to the Bronze, Larry Blaisdell was fuming inside. Ok, so, yeah, he was skipping out on escorting kids. Big freaking deal. Hey – _he_ was the _Quarter_back. It wasn't like the runty Troll Principal could actually suspend him or anything for it. Hah. _And_ he was gonna blow off Saturday detention tomorrow too. Double hah!

Let Harris take the extra kids. Or that Buffy freak. And thinking of _Harris_...

How _dare_ Cordelia Chase insinuate that he couldn't 'perform'. Larry didn't believe for a minute that Harmony had said anything like that about him. She hadn't seemed too disappointed with his performance. And hell, Harmony was too stupid to be any good as an actress.

Hey, it wasn't his fault he had, uh, lost interest part way through the blow job Harm was giving him. And he'd gotten his, uh, _interest_ back up again soon enough.

Bitch. That's all Cordelia was: a rich, snooty, castrating _bitch_.

And for that matter, how the hell did she dare stand up for Xander freaking _Harris_ of all people? And where the hell did _that_ come from? Larry also didn't believe for a minute that Cordelia was really all that pissed off about her stupid Homecoming Princess poster getting knocked down. Not like all that Junior Homecoming crap actually mattered – Homecoming Queen and _King_ were the only ones that counted. Who the hell cared who the Homecoming Princess was? Not even the _yearbook_ committee, that's who.

Cordelia had been getting way too chummy with Buffy Summers and her little group of freaks ever since all that weird stuff around the Spring Formal last year, if you asked him. She was probably reverting back to type, like when she and Aura used to actually _play_ with Harris and Rosenberg and all them. Before she got class and common sense.

Hell, Cordelia was probably _playing_ with Harris now, if you knew what Larry meant, and he thought you did.

And Harris had some nerve standing up to him all of a sudden when Larry's fist had clenched – perfectly understandable, given the provocation – and he'd started to shake it at Cordelia. Just to intimidate her, mind. Not like he'd actually _hit_ her.

Not hard, anyway.

Maybe slap some of the bitchy out of her, but not _hit_ her, like he'd hit a guy.

Harris had even _more_ nerve getting that weird look in his eyes and that quietly deadly tone to his voice when he'd warned Larry off, too. Like the punk would actually _stop_ Larry if Larry decided to go through him...

Larry hunched his shoulders a bit. Well, but there were those rumors about Harris. Like him taking on Chris and Daryl Epps to save Cordy during all that weirdness earlier in the year. And there was that time back in the fifth grade that Kyle DuFours had shoved Willow and hit her, and _started_ to slap Cordelia when she'd yelled and ran across the playground at him...

And Harris had come freaking _unglued_ and put Kyle in the emergency room, screaming that no one hit his girl and no one hit _Willow_ around him.

It had taken Larry and two other guys to pull Harris off of Kyle, plus a shaken looking and bleeding from the mouth Tor Hauer.

Hell, _Larry_ didn't take swings at Tor Hauer. _No one _did. Not even Crazy Jack O'Toole.

And Tor Hauer didn't start fights with Xander Harris after that, either. At least not when Willow, Cordelia, or Aura were anywhere in the vicinity. _Pick_ on him and Jesse, yeah, and push them around, sure. But nothing more serious than shoving him into lockers, dope slaps, jostling him in the hall, or tripping him. Almost good-natured stuff, for Tor and Heidi.

And then there was that weird bit where Harris had actually been running with and _leading_ Kyle, Rhonda, Tor, and Heidi briefly during that freaky thing where they'd been lording it around the school and the Bronze, and Principal Flutie had gotten eaten by wild dogs...

Yeah, for someone who _supposedly_ hated Harris, Rosenberg, and that Jesse clown, Chase had _always_ been a bit too chummy with them. And Aura had always kinda liked Harris. Hell, Cordelia even almost looked like she enjoyed her daily insult matches with Xander.

Brr. Was the temperature supposed to drop tonight? It was suddenly awful chilly... and why was the interior of the car so bright? And huh, were those _electrical_ sparks. Damn, his wiring had better not be on the fritz again. Weird crackling noise, too... and oh, God, a sudden pain in his chest. He was too young for a heart –

– By the time that the Le Baron crashed in through the front door of the Quick Stop at the corner of Ocean and Sundowner, there was nothing but a scorched mark and a smell of ozone in the front seat of the Chrysler to mark that Larry had ever been there.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: East Ocean Drive near North 17th Street, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

The cascading wave of chaos magic struck the Oldsmobile 442 convertible, swept over and through it, leaving transformation in its wake just as it had in every other place it had passed.

Broderick Carmichael gasped as everything went cold around him, and a ripping, tearing sensation passed through his body. The abrupt pain and the disorientation caused him to both step on the accelerator and lose control of the car, and the 442 veered suddenly to the left at speed. It cut across three lanes of traffic, narrowly missing another car.

On the far side of East Ocean, it hit and jumped the curve, bouncing into the vacant lot half way between 12th and 17th.

Halfway across the lot, with Broderick still in the throes of chaos transformation, it smashed into a small tree, coming to a sudden, crashing halt.

The impact threw him out of the car – Broderick Carmichael wasn't wearing a seat belt, and he had the top down to enjoy the cool October air. He flew a good dozen yards through the air, screaming in pain and disorientation...

Broderick Carmichael hit the ground in a tumbling rolling sprawl –

– _Sabretooth_ came out of the sprawl, snarling and rolling smoothly up onto his feet, lambent yellow eyes glowing with unrestrained ferocity, unholy glee, and feral rage.

'_Where in the freaking hell am I,_' was the first thought that went through his mind as he whipped around, gazing about incredulously in all directions, '_And what soon to be gutted wise ass dumped me in a moving car and out on my ass?_' He lifted his head, sniffing at the cool twilight air, and his next thoughts were, '_Fee fi fo fum, I smell a __decidedly_interesting_ frail._'

He turned slowly, zeroing in on the enticing scent. There was strength in that, fierceness almost to match his own, and a truly bizarre sense of... spellcraft overlaying it and almost suppressing all of the other overtones. Almost. Hrmm.

_That_ a way.

Sabretooth grinned a nasty slasher smile, dropped to all fours, and loped off in pursuit of the tantalizing odor in the manner of his namesake.

No longer a man, and _never_ human.

Pure predator, looking forward to some sport, followed by a kill.

Hell, sex, killing, no difference. Not for him.

The _frail_ might have a different opinion on that, but who the fuck cared?

Women were for two things, and of the two, screaming was always his favorite.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: South McElhaney Avenue, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

Harmony Kendall locked her car doors and dropped her keys in her bag, smirking. She bent over to check her hair in the side window. Nice. And time to go into the Bronze.

She just couldn't wait to see Cordelia's expression when Harmony came waltzing in with her designer costume. Who needs Cordelia's stupid little 'cat theme' and off the rack kitty outfits? Anyway, Cordelia didn't have an actual studio costume. Even better: a one of a kind _studio_ one off promotional costume for some movie! Ok, so it was a movie that hadn't been made or released yet and might not be, but that made it even better. Almost _unique_, like, even.

That was just like being an exclusive, almost.

Heck, Cordelia didn't even have a BMW roadster like Harmony did...

Well, Harmony's _daddy__'s_ BMW roadster, anyway, but it was his _second_ car and Harmony now had the use of it all the time almost, and, so there. _Cordelia_ just had a regular plebeian Mustang GT Convertible. (Harmony carefully ignored the fact that the new model Mustang belonged to _Cordelia_, not to Cordy's _daddy_...)

She also couldn't wait to see the reactions of all the guys, including Cordelia's _date_, to Harmony in the skin tight oxblood red leather jump suit thingy, with the ginormous chrome plated fake pistols.

Harmony knew she looked drool worthy. And now everyone would.

It would just start Cordelia's slide down the social ladder when Harmony took her date out from under her nose...

Harmony was so wrapped up in her own thoughts, such as they were, that she didn't even notice the cold wind that hit her before she had fully crossed the Bronze's parking lot. A sudden chill and a cold pain in her chest made her gasp and completely miss the blue white glow and the electrical sparks and coruscating energy that began to surround her, until...

Suddenly she was gone and there was only a circular scorch mark on the asphalt left to mark where she had been.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Imojin Parkway near __Sheffield Drive, Sunnydale, Early Evening – _

There was a flash of blue-white light that went on and on, and a crackling, tearing sound, and, abruptly, Daniel Rand-K'ai, aka Iron Fist, the paler and more martial arts oriented half of the superhero team of Heroes for Hire, found himself standing in the middle of a broad street in a residential neighborhood.

With absolutely zero idea how he had gotten there.

Or, for that matter, where _there_ was.

There was a sudden chorus of screams, shrieks, and terrified howls and Iron Fist spun around, reaching internally for the power that gave him his name, only to see a large group of small costumed figures bolting away down the street as fast as they could. Away from _him_. Well, most of them. There was a tiny handful of, uh, really _odd_ looking small costumed figures bolting away in all other directions, too.

And was that a small glowing _pixie_ zipping along after the larger group, about five feet off the ground?

Danny Rand blinked, resisting the urge to rub at his eyes, or maybe smack himself in the forehead to reboot his brain.

Not like he hadn't seen weirder stuff around New York... and hey, Wasp looked like that sometimes, depending on her outfit of the moment. Ok, without the glow, maybe...

Releasing the power of the Iron Fist – no need to draw on it unneeded – Rand turned slowly in place, examining his surroundings.

Definitely not New York City. No skyscrapers towering above the residential area, and you could see at least the tops of the skyline from almost anywhere in the city. And a lot more groups and scattered pairs and clusters of small figures running hither and yon around the suburban landscape. More than a few of them just as oddly shaped and formed as the first ones he'd noticed splitting off from the bigger group.

He did spot a street sign, and narrowed his eyes to focus on it. Huh. Imojin Parkway... not a street that sounded even vaguely familiar to him. And another cross street intersecting and merging with it a few blocks up that way...

And, uh oh. Was that the sound of faint, terrified screaming coming from more or less in that direction? Sounded like a woman screaming, not like a group of suddenly startled kids.

Danny Rand, Iron Fist, flipped a mental coin. Somehow, even with all of his physical fitness and all of the disciplines of Mystical K'un-L'un, he didn't think he could catch up to the kids he'd scared the stuffing out of. Not with the head start they had – _man_, they were really booking along. And it sounded like the woman's screams were drawing closer, with the sounds of snarling roars behind them, also drawing nearer.

That settled _that_. Breaking into a ground eating lope of his own, Iron Fist took off at a dead run.

Toward the sound of the woman's screams. And toward the roaring sounds chasing her.

Toward deadly danger, as usual.

Man. Luke would have a _fit_ laughing himself silly at _this_ predicament that Danny had somehow gotten himself into.

* * *

.


	9. And Action! Showtime!

**Chapter Eight: And... Action! Showtime!**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Imojin Parkway near __Sheffield Drive, Sunnydale__, Evening 5:20pm – _

"Aaahhhhhhhh!"

Dang, that sounded like Cissy Markham screaming, Corporal– no, _First __Sergeant_Benjy (Beverly or Bev) Sheridan thought. It sure couldn't be her. Eleven year olds didn't scream in sheer terror like freaking banshees...

She, along with the rest of their troop of more than thirty or so third, fourth, and fifth graders fell back hastily as Tech-sergeant Hicks gave out a harsh, almost sobbing scream and then a faint at first, and then _bright_ blue-white glow began to surround him. Beverly's eyes widened, and she was pretty sure she wasn't the only one in their group.

First Sergeant Benjy didn't look around to check. She was afraid to take her eyes off of the spectacle in front of her.

The glow surrounding Tech-sergeant Hicks, who's real name was Xander, but he'd said he was Hicks for tonight (wrong movie for his outfit, but who was Bev to correct him?), got even brighter, becoming almost as bright as one of those huge arc lamp things. Then it swelled abruptly, and Bev, along with the rest of the kids, hastily scrambled even farther back and away.

The light glow formed an almost perfect blue-white sphere about ten feet across, then flared even brighter – so bright and hot that Bev could feel the heat on her face from six feet from the edge of it – and faded suddenly, dwindling until it was a tiny will-o-the-wisp type thing that left bright/dark after images like when you got caught in a camera flash. And then it winked out completely.

And Xander Harris, aka Tech-Sergeant Dwayne Hicks, their High School escort, was gone, leaving only a circular scorch mark and a smell of ozone to mark that he'd ever been there.

Bev threw a wild look around, mostly to see if the rest of her troop was as shocked and freaked out as she was. They certainly appeared to be. And more. Oh, crap...

Where little eight year old third grader Claire Bennett, aka Private Pooka, had been was now a faintly green glowing ball of light encasing a _very_ little roughly seven to nine inch tall Claire Bennett. One who was still wearing a short, dark green faerie dress, and still _looked_ like Claire. But instead of gauzy _fake_ wings on the back, there were two glowing green and white blurs beating like a hummingbird's wings...

Bev didn't really have time to absorb that fully.

Because Vanessa Johansson, one of the non-soldier costumed kids, had _changed_. Her little slinky red-devil costume now suddenly seemed a lot less like _costume_ and a lot more like _skin_. And that fake pitchfork didn't look so _fake_ any more. Neither did the horns. And that spade tipped tail was moving like it was under its own power rather than dragging along behind her, and lashing back and forth like an angry cat's. Vanessa, aka Private Red-Devil, bared a mouthful of _extremely_ sharp white teeth, looked around wildly, threw the pitchfork at Devila, and fixed glowing red eyes on Corporal Bucky, aka one of her classmates, Johnny Smith, and leaped at him with suddenly clawed hands –

Near simultaneous with that, Tommy Dawkins – who had been dressed as a kid version of Teen Wolf – suddenly sprouted _real_ hair and fangs and claws, growled, and leaped at Private Pirate Gwendolyn. With, like, what looked like _real_ intent to eat her all up and my what big _teeth_ you suddenly have...

... there was a loud Bang! and a cloud of white smoke as Private Pirate Gwendolyn fell back screaming, and a yelp and blood and a whole lot of wide eyes and screams (including hers, she was ashamed to say). Private Dread Pirate Roberts, aka Henry Deacon in real life, had raised his now apparently real cap lock pistol and shot Private Wolf-man through the shoulder. Oh-_kay_... And then were-Tommy hit the ground, rolling and snarling, holding one arm...

– And Corporal Bucky raised his Red, White, Blue and Star spangled shield and smacked Private Red Devil in the face with it. _Hard_ – hard enough to make a loud _clang! _like when you shot a metal trashcan with a wrist rocket (not that _Bev_ knew from experience, nuh uh) and sent her flipping over onto her back to land there stunned.

Oh-kay...

On top of that (as if that wasn't bad enough), Private Kitty Kat (her so _not_ a friend Tawny Cypress), was lashing her fake tail on her Night Prowler costume, and baring real looking fangs and teeth and _hissing_ at Private Red-Devil. And there was black, seal soft fur on her face and hands and showing wherever there'd been exposed skin on the costume... Private Devila's, aka Monica Dawson's, little Red Demon Sorceress costume was also looking _way_ too real all of a sudden, as in: real horns, red-gold skin, yellow glowing eyes, and lashing tail _real_... she had apparently caught the flung pitchfork out of the freaking _air_, 'cause she was now holding it at low ready. And Princess Wicked, aka Niki Saunders, another fourth grader from a different school, had drawn herself up and her little scepter was _glowing_.

Scotty Durgan, another of Bev's schoolmates, growled deep down in the throat of his no-longer-a-lion-_costume_ and lashed out with a pawed hand. Private Treasure, Bev's slight acquaintance Janice Penshaw, snapped her bullwhip at his nose and fired her revolver into the air, and he fell back, snarling. Private Lady d'Artagnan, another classmate, Amanda Hagan, aimed her musket at another kid wearing a vampire costume and baring suddenly too too real looking fangs, and with glowing red eyes.

A few of the other kids, including the ones from Lady Willow's group that had just joined up with them were looking awful weird also.

First Sergeant Benjy, almost with a reflex she had no idea where she pulled it from, yelled out "All right! Fall in!" in her best Drill Sergeant voice. (That she'd been practicing in her head ever since she'd been promoted). "Defensive formation! Hut!"

With the exception of Private Red-Devil, the snarling Private Wolf-man, and some of the other now weird looking kids, for a wonder of wonders, everyone did. Many of them still shrieking, but they _did_ fall in.

Including, unfortunately, Monica, Private Princess Wicked, and Kitty Cat, but at least _they_ were facing out toward the _enemy_, and not in toward _them_.

Luckily, when Private Red-Devil rolled back onto her feet and growled at them, and Private Pirate Roberts fired his other pistol over her head, she ran _off_. So had a few of the _other_ kids, the ones from Ghost-lady Willow's group that had joined up with them. They _still_ looked awfully strange _too_, when they turned to run...

That left only a few of the suddenly weird looking kids, including the ones in her formation, still there. But at least they were standing around mostly looking puzzled and not doing anything.

Taking advantage of the momentary respite from shocking bizarreness, Bev turned to Corporal Bucky, wide eyed. He looked back at her, pretty wide eyed himself, which was oddly reassuring. "What the hell, uh, I mean, _heck?_"

"Uh... no idea, First Sergeant," Bucky said, shrugging a bit helplessly.

"Umm... " Beverly looked around helplessly, confused. Her gaze fastened on the still hovering – and still tiny and glowing – Private Pooka, and she said, "Claire? What the heck are you doing?"

"My _name_ is Private Pooka Bell," the little faerie said, in a really high pitched and musical voice. "Sergeant Ma'am."

"_Oh_-kay," Beverly said, blinking. "Of course it is." Shrugging, she again turned to Corporal Bucky, and shook her head. He looked back just as stunned, and just as bemused. "Uh," Beverly said, "I don't remember Bucky having the Captain America shield from the cartoon."

"Guess Cap let me borrow it, I guess," Bucky said, shrugging. He blinked at her from behind his mask. "And, uh, ma'am? Cartoon, ma'am?"

"Uh... " Beverly shook her head again, feeling a sudden urge to bang it on something hard a few times. "Of course he did."

Whatever she was about to say after that was interrupted as a small blue-white glow appeared where Tech-sergeant Hicks had been, right on the very spot, she thought. She turned and stared at it intently, hoping it meant that whatever took him away was bringing him back to take all this off of her hands. Everyone else, even the other transformed kids, did the same, for whatever reasons of their own.

Apparently, things didn't work that way...

The glowing spot did what it had before, only in reverse. And when it suddenly and abruptly faded, it left behind, not Tech-sergeant Hicks...

... But a man in a green and gold skin tight costume with a high collar, gold glowing eyes, a gold glowing dragon on his bare chest, and a red-gold glow beginning to form around his left hand.

Oh so very much not of the good. In _no_ cartoon or anime that Bev had ever _seen_ did guys with glowing stuff and high collared dragon costumes _ever_ turn out to be good guys.

Crap. She had just wanted to go freaking Trick-or-treating.

There was a loud, shrill chorus as every single one of the kids in her Foraging Group let out a sharp, terrified scream. Including, Beverly wasn't ashamed to admit, herself.

She did the only thing she could think of. Well, actually, she really wasn't _thinking_ by that point. This last bit was just a little bit _too_ much for her already fraying and nearly non-existent nerves... First Sergeant Benjy, aka Beverly Sheridan, finished her scream and let out another one that said: "_Run! Retreat!_"

Taking her own advice, she spun in place and took off down Imojin as fast as she could go. Which was pretty durned fast: she might be small for a fifth grader, but she was quick. Behind and along side her, everyone took her advice and did the same.

They did what Tech-sergeant Hicks had suggested earlier and didi-mau'ed the heck outta there.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Warehouse District near West __McElhaney__ Avenue__, Sunnydale, Evening 5:__2__5__pm – _

"All right," Spike paused, looking around at the chaos and mayhem all about them. He turned to watch a pack of monsters chasing a small group of teenagers down the street. "This is just... neat. Dunno who or what caused it, but I'd love to shake their hand before I drained them."

The group of a dozen or so minions nodded their agreement, all watching the destruction and frenzy with expressions of glee, all of them in game face.

"What do you think is going on, Boss?" a female vampire in a red bustier asked him.

"Like she said, insides to outsides, whatever that bloody well means," Spike said, shrugging. "Ok, listen up," he clapped his hands for attention. "You heard Dru. Somewhere out there is the sweetest blood you'll ever want to taste, and whatever this is, it's left her all helpless. And I want her. So spread out and bleeding _find_ her." He glared around at them, and added, "And _no one_ drinks her. She's _mine_."

"Uh, why do _you_ get to drain the Slayer?" a male minion in a leather jacket asked, looking belligerent. "Shouldn't it be whoever finds her first?"

Spike looked at him, shaking his head, almost sadly. He pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his lips, and lit it. "Because," he said, reaching out and snapping the minion's neck before he could react. "I said so."

He let the still undead but now paralyzed body drop to the street. "Any more stupid arsed questions?" Spike glared around at the others.

Everyone shook their heads.

"Good. Then spread out and go."

"Uh," the female minion in the red bustier raised a hand almost shyly. "How do we find you once we've found her?"

"Oy... " Spike shook his head again. He dope slapped the girl vampire up side of the head. "You have those bleeding disposable cell phones I gave you, right? _Call_ me. Idiot."

All of them nodded like bobble head dolls and scattered hastily before he could lose his temper again. Spike watched them go, his expression disgusted.

"Minions. Not a brain in the lot of 'em."

He set off up the street in the general direction of the Slayer's house. But first a stop along the way. He knew where he could pick up another group of minions to take along to handle any surprises that popped up.

Surprises like, oh, his former Yoda, Angelus...

Spike paused near an intersection to watch with intense curiosity and professional interest as a curvaceous, long legged brunette in an abbreviated Red Riding Hood outfit ran screaming up the opposite sidewalk, chased by a nightmarish wolf thing wearing nothing but fur and a pair of ragged trousers and an old fashioned ruffled night cap. She made it a few yards farther, and then the wolf-man closed the distance in a rush.

The screams intensified, along with the wolfish snarling, and then cut off abruptly as arterial blood sprayed nearly seven feet high across the nearby storefront.

"My, what big teeth you have, grandma," Spike said in a high pitched falsetto. His voice then dropped a register to a deep and mocking baritone, "The better to rend you with, my dear." He threw back his head, laughing. "What a show. Bloody marvelous. Waste of perfectly good blood, but marvelous."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 5:30pm – _

"Oh, there they are," Cordelia Chase said.

The Cordettes, including the probationary new girl, the Caribbean exchange student, Tamara, had managed to actually find a table big enough for all of them. Two, actually – it looked like they'd just pushed a couple or maybe three of the square Bronze tables to the middle left of the dance floor together, partway toward the rear of the club.

What_ever_. As long as they were there and hadn't flaked out on her.

Her date nodded and took her arm, breaking trail for her in leading the way back to the table. Well, Owen _was_ at least a gentleman, unlike _some_ people she could think of. Maybe people.

She was seriously going to demote Larry from 'people' status. Imagine – he was seriously going to _hit_ her? As if!

That was the death of his social life in this school. At least as far as dating the Cordettes were concerned. _Possibly_ even the entire cheer leading squad and drill team, if Cordelia had her way.

Apparently, whatever lame band they'd managed to scrape up for tonight was on break or something, because the Bronze had the DJ mix on instead, and at about half volume where you could hear and talk over it.

"Hey!" Lishanne called out as they came up, the rest of the crew nodding agreement. Owen pulled out a chair, surprising her, and Cordelia flashed him a halfway startled smile as she sat down.

Wow. Manners even. And hey, he didn't clean up half bad, once you got him out of his 'Mister I'm a half-assed Goth Jock wanna be poet' blacks. Right now, he was wearing a leather bomber jacket, a fedora and tan chinos with hiking boots and a pistol belt. And a bullwhip, like that, uh, Arizona Bob archaeologist guy in the movies. Or something like that. Whatever.

The cute one that Harrison Ford played. It was Harrison _Ford_. Who cared what the character was?

"Drinks, serf," Cordelia said, snapping her fingers and pointing at the main bar on the right. She flashed him another smile to let him know she was only joking on the serf thing. Mostly.

"Whatever you want, Princess," Harrison Owen drawled at her, winking. Oh! Indiana, not Arizona. Indiana Bob.

"What I _want_ is a white wine spritzer, but I'll _settle_ for a white sparkling grape," Cordelia said, "Since they're so lame and anal retentive about the ID thing."

"You got it." Owen said. He moved off through the tables toward the bar, side stepping or going around clumps of people.

And, wow. Crowded tonight. And rowdy, too.

"Hey guys," Cordelia said, finally, turning her attention to her troops. "Huh. Where's Aura? She flake?"

"Hasn't made it yet," Angelique said, shrugging.

"Harmony's a no show, too," Aphrodesia said, taking a sip of her drink. "She's probably still sulking over you and Aura and Tam at the costume shop." The other Cordettes snickered.

"What _ever_, jeeze," Cordelia said, tossing her hair. Huh. Speaking of troops... "Wow. You look awful military, Tam," she said. She looked the island girl over.

"Yup. Major Hottie, reporting ma'am!" Tamara grinned and threw her a jaunty mock salute.

"Good. Drop and give me fifty," Cordelia said.

"Ok. Fifty what?" Tamara said, her eyes widening in mock alarm.

"Oh, who cares. I'll decide whenever I get around to it," Cordelia said, waving off the trivia. "Just give me fifty of them, whatever they are."

The other girl laughed, the rest of the Cordettes joining in as they figured out that it was a joke and Cordelia was teasing. Jeeze, sometimes she thought that aside from Aura, and now Tam, there wasn't more than two active braincells in the group, and those were on a time share...

The Major Hottie thing wasn't too far off, either. The dark skinned girl had on a body and curve hugging camouflage mini dress that had enough zipper down at the top to show enough cleavage and breast curve to be intriguing, but not enough to be completely slutty. And enough of a front split at the bottom to show off a lot of long dusky leg without being high enough to show off any camo undies... plus a camo helmet, matching high heeled lace up boots, a pistol in a strap on leg holster, and lots of ammo belt things.

Cool. Briefly, Cordelia almost wished she'd gone for a military theme instead of cats, but hey. Can't cover _all_ the bases.

"So that was the mix and match?" Cordelia said, gesturing at the girl's ensemble.

"Umm hmm," Tamara said. "The dress and helmet came from one, the double ammo bandoliers and boots from another, and the belts and pistol thing from assorted props. And the short shorts from the second underneath to foil any Neanderthals wanting to try and look up the skirt slit." She winked at Cordelia, and finished off her daiquiri thing.

Cordelia nodded. Smarts, looks, class, taste, and imagination. She decided right then that Tam was no longer a _probationary_ Cordette. But she wouldn't _say_ that for another week, of course. No need to let the newcomer off the hook. Not that Tam looked like she was sweating it or even cared, which was another plus in her favor. Cordelia had _enough_ fawning minions not to need another...

"Well, darn," Tamara said. "I've gone all dry. Time for a drink run, since the waitresses seem to all be tied up."

True, that. The bronze looked like it had gone all Renn Faire on the bar maid costume theme, and they were scattered all over. A _few_ running back and forth trying to keep up with drink and food orders, and more than half just hanging out and flirting with customers, it seemed.

"Anyone else want?" Tamara asked, standing. When she got a chorus of 'no's and 'I'm fine's and head shakes, she shrugged, threw Cordelia an ironic salute, and sashayed off toward the rear bar on the left, winding her way through and around tables and clumps of people.

While she was waiting for Owen to navigate the other, more crowded bar and make it back, Cordelia looked around the club.

And wow again. Full house, almost all in costume. Looked like all the need to know crowd was here, too. No, wait. Now that she looked around, they were still missing Joy and the rest of the cheerleader squad, a good chunk of the drill team, and about half or more of the jocks. Probably doing the fashionably late thing...

The club had a kind of a tight atmosphere to it, for some reason. Not quite enough to make Cordelia uneasy, but enough to register and grate along her nerves. Almost like a place expecting a fight, or a storm, and not quite knowing when it was due.

And, let's see. Otherwise... huh. There was Tor Hauer with Heidi. She didn't see any more of the wonder quartet, so apparently Kyle DuFours and Rhonda Kelly were no shows. Good riddance, too. And no Jack O'Toole. Even better riddance. Tor was wearing an all black western gunfighter looking thing, complete to hat and a really realistic looking sixgun in a low slung, tied down holster... with a silver chess head emblem on it that seemed vaguely familiar to Cordelia for some reason. Heidi had on a fringed and silver trimmed either short short dress or long wrap around vest, embroidered shirt, hat, boots, and gunbelt, with a long frock coat, also all in black. And, hah! That was a laugh: a silver Marshall's badge on the hat and the vest over the embroidered shirt.

More than a few pirates, male and female; some of them rough housing here and there, some arm wrestling or just drinking and watching. A number of cowboys and gunfighters and saloon gals and gambler girls. Quite a few barbarians, warrior princesses, musketeers, and knights and warriors of various types. Cordelia got a twinge at the sight of one Musketeer, a tall slender guy with dark hair and a plumed hat. Jesse had always been their musketeer when they were little kids, even when they were playing at something else...

She banished the twinge. And she had so given up all of that and all of them in the third grade, jeeze. A shame Jesse got himself vamped and then dead, but... Cordelia gave a mental shrug. Not the only or first kid she'd grown up with that that had happened to in the past year or so. Not the last. But it was Jesse, one of hers that she'd known since kindergarten, and _that_ sucked...

Ever since that night, once she'd been woken up to the reality of vampires and demons, the Bronze tended to bring back that little depressing trip down memory lane. Especially on nights like tonight, when the club just felt... _tense_. With a determined effort, Cordelia banished the whole line of thought, again.

Halloween, party, costume contest, jeeze. This was a night to have _fun_, _not_ get depressive.

Tamara was not the only soldier or military type, either. And, oh, wow. Was that _Jonathan_? She'd never have recognized Levinson if she hadn't caught a glimpse of his profile as he half turned to watch Tamara walk up. Even his body language was all different, jeeze. Good costuming, for a nerd. Speaking of nerds, geeks, and other social outcasts...

"Oh," Cordelia said, drawing the Cordette's attentions. "Hey, let me tell you about the impending social death of Larry Blaisdell... "

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sunnydale Waterfront District, Evening 5:30pm – _

Despite the relatively early hour, the waterfront and shoreline warehouse district wasn't heavily trafficked tonight. Therefore no one saw an area in a vacant lot near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks begin to glow.

A short time after the glow began, it spread and strengthen, gradually becoming an actinic blue-white. Sparks began to shoot off from it, and then it was surrounded by spirals of coruscating electricity. After a long, frozen moment, the glow became a glowing blue-white sphere, and then abruptly – a great deal more abruptly than it had appeared – it winked out.

Behind it, in a shallow circular depression burned and melted into the asphalt all the way through and down to the underlying earth... it left something behind.

A stark naked, blonde haired, tall, and extremely muscular young looking male stood lightly and easily from the crouched, kneeling position he'd been deposited in.

Glancing around curiously, he, or possibly it, stood for a time as though deeply in thought before starting to move.

* * *

SYSTEMS CHECK... PROCESSING

SYSTEMS... ONLINE

PRIMARY COGNITIVE UNIT CHECK... PRIMARY COGNITIVE UNIT ONLINE... FUNCTIONAL

CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT CHECK... CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT ONLINE... FUNCTIONAL

SECONDARY PROCESSING UNIT CHECK... SECONDARY PROCESSING UNIT ONLINE... FUNCTIONAL

DATABASE CHECK... SCANNING DATABASE... DATABASE PRESENT AND FUNCTIONAL

SYSTEMS IDENTIFICATION QUERY:

PROCESSING QUERY... PROCESSED

SYSTEMS IDENTIFICATION COMPLETE:

UNIT DESIGNATION: LARRY BLAISDELL

.

UNIT MODEL: CALAX INTERNATIONAL TERMINATOR SERIES 850 Model T-101L

UNIT SERIES DESIGNATOR: T-101L S850I-C-0HIA

UNIT TYPE: TERMINATOR T101LS850I SEARCH AND DESTROY UNIT

UNIT SERIAL NUMBER: 20A0A-19HE03-2121549191012L-0H

.

SYSTEMS STATUS QUERY... PROCESSING QUERY...

MAIN COGNITIVE PROCESSORS... ONLINE

MCP STATUS... 99.97%

CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT... ONLINE

CPU STATUS... 97.89%

SYSTEMS CHECK... SYSTEMS NOMINAL

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS... PROCESSING

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS... COMPLETE

SYSTEMS STATUS... 98.99%

.

QUERY: REASON FOR NON-OPTIMAL SYSTEMS STATUS?

PROCESSING QUERY...

PROCESS COMPLETE: MINOR DAMAGE TO SECTORS...

CANCEL STATUS UPDATE

QUERY: DAMAGE REPAIRABLE?

PROCESSING QUERY... NOT WITH PRESENT RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT

QUERY: IMPACT OF NON-OPTIMAL STATUS UPON PRIMARY MISSION?

PROCESSING QUERY... NEGLIGIBLE IMPACT

QUERY: IMPACT OF NON-OPTIMAL STATUS UPON SECONDARY MISSION?

PROCESSING QUERY... NEGLIGIBLE IMPACT

.

QUERY: UNIT CURRENT LOCATION?

GPS SYSTEMS ONLINE

SCANNING FOR GPS SATELLITE SYSTEMS... LOCATED

UNIT CURRENT LOCATION: SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, NORTH AMERICA

QUERY: UNIT CURRENT TEMPORAL COORDINATES?

SCANNING... UNABLE TO DETERMINE NULL DATA SET

.

QUERY: MISSION PARAMETERS?

SCANNING DATABASE...

MISSION PARAMETERS RETRIEVED:

DISPLAYING MISSION PARAMETERS...

.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE... LOCATE AND IDENTIFY PRIMARY SUBJECT

PRIMARY SUBJECT... CORDELIA DESIREE CHASE

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE... TERMINATE

SECONDARY DIRECTIVE... NO SECONDARY DIRECTIVE

.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE... LOCATE AND IDENTIFY SECONDARY SUBJECT

SECONDARY SUBJECT... ALEXANDER LAVELLE HARRIS

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE... TERMINATE

SECONDARY DIRECTIVE... NO SECONDARY DIRECTIVE

.

TERTIARY OBJECTIVE... PROCESSING...

TERTIARY OBJECTIVE: OBTAIN CLOTHING, EQUIPMENT, WEAPONS. INFILTRATE. IDENTIFY TEMPORAL LOCATION. LOCATE PRIMARY SUBJECT. LOCATE SECONDARY SUBJECT. TERMINATE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SUBJECT. FOLLOWING TERMINATION OF SUBJECTS, IDENTIFY AND LOCATE SUITABLE BASE LOCATION. SUGGESTED BASE LOCATION: RESIDENCE OF ADVANCE SCOUT SERIES T-720T INFILTRATOR UNIT DESIGNATED "TED BUCHANAN". PROCEED TO BASE LOCATION. GO TO STANDBY AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

.

Without a nod or any other outward sign of acknowledgment for a process that had taken place internally in mere seconds, the Calax International Series T101L Model 850 turned its attention to the building it had noted and identified shortly after being deposited here.

It now knew that the building was an establishment for drinking and entertainment. Colloquially known as a bar.

According to its database, a bar was an excellent place to acquire clothing, transportation, and data on its current temporal location.

Expressionlessly, it proceeded to leave the vacant lot and the vicinity of the railroad tracks, and walk across the street.

Along with the rest of the data, its graphic processor unit had located and displayed digital images of its primary and secondary subjects. It was time to begin its primary mission.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Downtown Sunnydale near East Lemon and 5th Street, Evening 5:30pm – _

The blue-white haze cleared from his vision and the searing, wrenching, twisting and near infinite tearing sensation of the temporal shift _finally_ ended. Jeezus Kee-_rist_!

They hadn't told him that a temporal leap would last damned near forever. Of course, it couldn't have, really – that was the point, supposedly. Here now, there then. Only transition, no duration. So it really _couldn't_ have been an endless frozen moment of soundless screaming and twisting, gut wrenching eternity. They hadn't told him it would _hurt_ so damned much, either.

Of course, they _probably_ hadn't known, one way or the other. It wasn't like Tech-Comm, Central North American Resistance Command, exactly had a lot of people knowledgeable about quantum mechanics and temporal physics. They were lucky to have the very few they had been able to hastily locate, and the few fragmentary databases they did have.

Technical Sergeant Dwayne Hicks, Tech-Comm, Central North American Resistance Command, Serial Number: TZE08191221-51612, specialist in Infiltration, Foraging, Search and Destruction, Combat Technologies, Communications, and Heavy Weapons, Demolitions, and Improvised Destructive Devices, looked around himself.

The Leap had deposited him in what looked to be an alleyway, at least. Loads better than in the middle of a crowded street filled with gawking and startled human beings. Heh. The alley was a bit worse for the experience, also. The back step field had eaten a nice rounded divot through the nearby building wall, leaving a crisp sharp edge of concrete and re-bar showing around an empty space.

And, naked, of course. Given the restrictions on the available backstep technologies, he couldn't have shown up in any other condition.

Crap. Hastily he put his hand up to the thong around his neck, and gave a sigh of relief. The two small photographs _had_ made it, thank the misbegotten and forsaken gods... _Supposedly_, only _living_ organic material could transit. Or things completely encased in living organic material. Also, supposedly, or at least so the techs had assured him, the organic paper photos encased in synthetic living polymer compound could transit as well. _Theoretically_, at least.

As a technician himself, albeit in a vastly different and much less advanced set of fields, Dwayne had found their quaint faith in technology and theory rather touching_. __Especially_ considering that faith in technology had gotten them _into_ this mess... He'd managed to restrain himself from making any smart assed comments along those lines, barely. He'd had the distinct feeling that while Morgan Chase-Harris, leader of the North American Resistance Command might find them humorous, they would _not_ be appreciated.

Pissing off your commanding officer, even when you were about to embark upon a one way mission, really wasn't a recommended thing in _any_ command. Hell, not likely, but Morgan _might_ even have decided to cancel his trip and send Kyle Reese instead. It had been a close thing in the first place... Hicks was dead certain that it was only his technical specialties that had tipped it in his favor.

Anyway, he was absurdly glad that the little organic polymer encased folder with the two tiny, flat, and much abused card shaped and card sized pieces of polymer encased paper had made it with him. Not that he really _needed_ the visual: he'd spent so much time over the years studying them that he had that particular face _memorized_. Every line, every elegant plane, every gorgeous curve, every detail. Just as he'd memorized the other one... But the trip would have been a hell of a lot colder and lonelier without them. And he'd have _missed_ the mementos, too. They'd been a part of him for so long...

Ok. Enough damned maundering, Hicks. Time to get moving before someone sees you here and has a fit at the naked man in the alleyway.

Huh. So why couldn't clothing and weapons be encased in synthetic living polymer and sent back, too? He had asked, but the technical explanation gave him a brain ache and he'd tuned out. Still, a M41A pulse rifle or a 300 Terawatt Plasma Gun would sure make things easier.

And a _lot_ more survivable...

Again. Enough maundering and wool gathering. You have people to see, and things to kill.

_Thing_, anyway. But one was more than enough.

* * *

.


	10. Heroes are Born When Heroes are Needed -

**Chapter Nine: Heroes are Born When Heroes are Needed...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sheffield Drive near Somerset Parkway, Sunnydale, Evening – _

Daniel Rand put on a burst of speed as he came out of the treeline onto the residential street. He could hear the feminine screaming getting closer as he ran. And the growling snarls, as well, unfortunately.

Rather than taking the street route, he'd taken a chance and shortcut across yards and part of the small park along the road past the houses, taking the most direct and fastest route he could find to intercept the screaming and terrified woman. A rottweiler had nearly proven that a miscalculation by almost taking one of his heels off as he jumped a fence and ran across a back yard. But decades of running and intensive training had left Daniel with the speed, agility, and physique an Olympic level runner and gymnast would kill for, and he'd managed to leap over the yard's rear fence just inches ahead of the snapping jaws.

The fast, all out run hadn't even left him winded.

He paused, coming to a rest for a moment as he took in the sight before him.

Coming down the middle of, uh, Sheffield, as a hasty glance at a street sign had told him, was a cappuccino skinned young woman in a leopard or jaguar skin patterned leotard, with fishnet stockings, matching gloves, and knee high black boots trimmed in leopard fur. She was obviously winded, obviously frightened almost out of her mind, and barely keeping ahead of her pursuer.

No. Keeping ahead of her pursuer because it, or he, was _allowing_ her to.

Whatever those high heeled boots were made for, it wasn't running. Even as Danny watched, she stumbled, catching herself before falling completely, and the pursuing creature paused with its tongue lolling and cocked its head to watch. As she caught her balance and continued, it darted forward and swiped at her almost playfully with a taloned paw, causing her to shriek again and stumble forward with renewed speed.

Speed that Danny knew she couldn't maintain much longer. The way she looked, before long either her breath and adrenaline would give out completely, or she'd stumble and sprawl full length on the street. Or the creature would tire of the game and simply end it.

Her pursuer... Danny blinked. For all the world, her pursuer looked like a werewolf wearing the clothing of a high school teenager, complete to a maroon and gold letterman jacket that proclaimed him a 'Sunnydale Razorback', whatever that was. Lon Chaney style wolf-man, with a short muzzle and a flat face rather than the hideously elongated and out slung jaws of a werewolf from the Howling movies.

Danny cupped his hands around his mouth and, taking in a deep breath yelled, "Hey!" as loud as he could. It drew the attention of both pursued and pursuer.

The woman – girl, actually, he could see now – gave him an incredulous look and altered her direction slightly to head directly for him. The were creature paused, jerking back to give him a curious and almost affronted look, before baring its fangs, throwing back its head and howling, and continuing forward.

Danny dropped back into a run to cross the remaining distance between them.

"Are you _nuts_?" the girl screamed at him as he drew up to her. "Run! Away!"

Danny gave her a bemused look as he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her around behind him. _She_ was in imminent danger of being gutted like a fish and she was warning _him_ off?

"You run," Danny said. "And keep running." He stepped forward, dropping into a cat stance and placing himself directly between the were creature and the teenage girl.

Said creature slowed, and then paused, studying him curiously. Curiously, and with a complete and utter _lack_ of fear or nervousness, Danny noted uneasily.

"What, are you an _idiot_? That thing will kill you!"

"I can take care of myself," Danny said. He wished he felt as reassuring as he hoped he sounded. While he had faced more than one feral, bestial opponent in his time, including Fera and the most dangerous one of all, he'd never faced a werewolf.

Never even seen one, actually. Until now.

"_Men_." Her voice was scathing. But judging from the sound, she had not taken his advice and run, merely retreated a few paces and placed herself off to one side.

Well, dammit, as Luke might say. That meant he'd have to worry about her as well as himself, and work extra hard at keeping the thing from getting past him. Except Luke would probably use lots stronger language...

"You wouldn't happen to have a gun and silver bullets handy, would you?" Danny said, joking.

"If I did, you think I'd have been _running_?"

Apparently making up its mind, the creature quit studying Danny, gathered itself onto its haunches, and leapt at him, claws spread and jaws agape. Not much for subtly. It evidently didn't consider him much of a threat, and was trusting to sheer speed and raw power to overwhelm him.

Danny didn't like the tiny thought that flashed through his mind suggesting it _might_ have a point. And then Daniel Rand submerged completely, and only Iron Fist, Champion of K'un-L'un was left.

As the werewolf arced toward him, Iron Fist fell backward, rolling with and under it. He caught and grabbed a double fistful of letter man's jacket, brought his right foot up between them, and kicked up and out, hard, as he rolled backward with the creature – launching it over and past him to thud into the asphalt of the street behind. Carefully angling the throw so as to carry it away from the girl...

Luke Cage was also impervious to teeth and claws, and would probably just slap the thing on the nose like a rowdy puppy, and then pick it up and throw it out into the park to bounce a few times when it landed a few hundred yards away. Daniel Rand wasn't, and didn't have those options.

Iron Fist rolled immediately back up onto his feet. So did the were thing, looking not much worse for wear. It just looked... annoyed.

Uh oh.

"Don't _hurt_ it! That's my date!" the girl yelled from behind them.

Obviously not having learned from just one encounter, it repeated the same tactic, only this time rushing in low rather than leaping. Iron Fist calculated the rush, timing it, and front snap kicked it under the jaw as it came in, snapping its head back and throwing it over it a full somersault onto its back.

It made a chuffing noise as the breath whomped out of it, and then growled and rolled back onto all fours. Apparently as resilient as if it were made out of rubber and whalebone.

And it had felt like kicking a brick wall.

He stepped in before it could set itself for another rush, and spin kicked it alongside the jaw, continuing the spin with a back fist, and then a front spin kick, driving it backward and back onto its haunches. He ended the sequence by making a slight hop, and jump snap kicking it in the nose. Hard.

It yelped, and then, apparently, its nerve broke. Obviously it wasn't used to meeting prey that fought back, and did so with greater skill than merely leap, snap, and slash.

Growling and shaking its head, it shook itself all over and then dropped to all fours again and bolted past Iron Fist and up the street, back in the direction from which it had come.

Sighing heavily, Iron Fist turned and watched it go, and then did similar, shaking himself all over and letting his focus and the rush of battle adrenaline drop away.

Danny Rand turned back to the girl he'd just rescued.

She shook her head, looking at him, her arms folded across her chest. "My hero," she said, her tone sardonic. "No, wait," she put out a hand, palm up, and said, "That was mean. You saved my _life_, damn. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Danny said, smiling. "And, don't worry about it. I've seen the let down from shock and adrenaline produce all kinds of reactions in people."

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow, and said, "You mean you do this sort of thing a _lot_?"

"Unfortunately," he said, sighing. "Way too often, it seems like. My name is Daniel Rand. Um... are you hurt?" He looked over curiously, and with some concern. Not all of the creature's swipes at her had looked like near misses.

The girl was a bit older than he'd taken her for at first glance, sixteen or maybe seventeen. Nicely built, around five six or so, with a symmetrically pretty face that suggested it was usually cheerful, and with skin the color of coffee with lots of cream. The way that Danny liked his. Uh, his _coffee_ that is. _Not_ seventeen year old girls.

"Aura," she said, "Aura Breckenridge. And... " she twisted, looking at her sides and back as far back as she could. "I don't think so. Not too bad. Just scratched mostly." Aura let out an exasperated sounding breath, and added, "But this costume is ruined! I'll _never_ get my deposit back. No – _now_ I'll have to _buy_ it, not just _rent_ it, damn it."

"The costume should be the least of your worries," Danny said. "Here, let me see." He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her gently so he could examine the cuts.

Not too bad, she was right, not merely speaking from shock. While the back and side of her catsuit was shredded in places, the claws had barely broken the skin.

"I don't think you'll need any stitches," he said, taking his hand from her shoulder. "But these should be dressed and disinfected. Uh... did it bite you anywhere?"

"Uh... " she looked blankly at him for a moment, turning back. "No, I don't think so. No," she said, firmly. "It didn't. Just slashed at me with those talon things." Aura paused, giving him a frank, up and down examination herself. "Wow. Talk about salty goodness, my oh my," she said, licking her lips.

"Uh... " Danny stepped back, suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable. That look had been way too close to someone appraising a blooded horse, or a side of beef. Or maybe beefcake. Her eyes flicked down, paused, and her grin grew broader.

"Circumcised, huh? How's that working out for you?" Aura said, smirking at him as her eyes traveled back up his body.

Danny felt an almost overwhelming urge to cross his legs and cup his hands over his crotch. He felt himself redden all over, judging by the sudden flush of heat, and cleared his throat, glaring at her. "Hey, now. Uh, that's a bit personal!"

"Well, _I_ didn't make you wear skin tight spandex and no underwear... Bet you're just awful popular. And hey!" Aura said, her eyes flashing. "And just what the _hell_ is going on, anyway? One minute that was my _date_, Blayne, and next he's going all Big Wolf in the Car Seat on me and looking like he wanted to eat my _face _off!"

"Uh, not a clue," Danny said, holding his hands up, palms out. "I just got here. Somehow. And, if you were trapped in a car with that thing, how did you get away?" He looked at her curiously.

"Oh, that," Aura shrugged, and made a negligent wave of the hand. "I crashed my car into a parked car and climbed out and ran while it was trying to pick itself up off the hood and out of the windshield," she said. Seeing his curious look, she added, "Seat belt and airbag. Blayne wasn't wearing his, and the passenger side doesn't have an airbag."

"Fast thinking," Danny said, grinning at her.

"Thanks," Aura said. She grinned back, and then suddenly froze, staring at him intently. "Wait a minute. I _know_ that grin. And that jawline. _And_ that voice... " stepping forward, she looked directly up into his face. "_Jesse_? Jesse _McNally_?"

"Uh, no... Danny," Danny said, confused. "Danny Rand. Aka Iron Fist." He took a step back from the suddenly way too intense young woman.

"Oh no you're not," Aura growled. Danny hadn't stepped back fast enough or far enough, apparently. Aura's hand shot out in a movement he hadn't expected, and she snatched his mask off of his head. "Jesse freaking McNally?" Her other hand shot out and smacked him across the face, hard. "And eww! I was practically _drooling_ over Jesse McNally?"

"ow!" Danny stepped back, holding his cheek. That had hurt!

"Where the hell have you been, _jerk_? Cordelia said you were _dead! _Your _friends_ even had a memorial! Your freaking _parents_ gave_ up_ on you and _moved _away, idiot!"

"You obviously have me mistaken for someone else, Miss," Danny said, stepping back hastily before she could slap him again. She seriously looked like she was wanting to.

And again, Luke would be laughing himself sick right now. Danny Rand, Iron Fist, getting pummeled by a slip of a girl a head shorter and probably sixty pounds lighter than himself. One he could probably block or dodge all _day_ if he could just get his bearings long enough for her to quit surprising him...

"Oh _no_ I _don't_," Aura said, stalking forward and almost growling it. "_I'd_ know that face _anywhere_. I grew _up_ with that face, dumb ass. From since we were freaking _five_, jerk." She glared at him, continuing to stalk forward as he kept backing away, holding his hands up to block any more slaps. "Dammit! I thought you were _dead_, idiot! Where the hell have you been? And where did you learn to _fight_ like that?"

"Honestly, ma'am, I- I- I... " Danny took another step back, unable to think or come up with any way to convince this girl of who he really was in the face of her obvious conviction otherwise.

A sudden, snarling roar and another shrill feminine scream grabbed both of their attentions and jerked them out of the intensely private little world they'd been inhabiting for a few minutes. They both spun to look up the street in the direction the scream had come from...

That coughing, snarling roar had sounded awfully, horrifyingly familiar, Danny thought.

Yup. A few blocks down, at the next cross street, there was what looked like another young woman wearing some blue and gold confection sprawled on the pavement and screaming her head off. And crouching over her, one clawed hand raised as if to strike...

Was Victor Creed. Sabretooth. Daniel Rand _and_ Iron Fist's oldest and deadliest enemy.

It never rains but it comes a monsoon.

He reached over almost absently and snatched back his mask from Aura, pulling it on as he ran desperately toward his second and deadliest confrontation of the evening.

One he wasn't entirely sure he was going to live through.

* * *

_Tuesday, October 28, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Evening 6:00pm -_

"Hey! You there, stop that right now."

Naturally, the fellow he was shouting at did no such thing, but merely continued on with his arse brained shenanigans. Rupert Giles sighed, rolled his eyes behind his glasses, and headed over to stop yet another costumed American supposed educator from doing something boorish and idiotic.

In this case, it was attempting to dismantle the lounge television with a butter knife. While the telly was still plugged in and turned on...

Giles supposed that he _could_ just let the ponce electrocute himself, but then they'd need another English teacher, and with his luck, that toad Snyder would make _Giles_ fill in.

"What is the matter now, Scholar?" Jenny Calendar asked him – in much better than merely passable colloquial Latin – as she followed him across the third floor teacher's lounge.

"That bloody arse needs to be prevented from doing what he is currently about," Giles said, a bit absently.

"Ah. I will do so, then," Jenny said, still in perfect, albeit accented Vulgate Latin. She began to stride forward, raising her gladius to... um, possibly behead the idiot. For one horrid moment, Giles was tempted to let her.

"Oh, bloody hell," he said, striding forward after her. "Not like _that_." Giles caught her wrist on the swing, just before the down stroke, and expertly twisted the short sword out of her grasp. "Give me that thing." Hrmm. Nice blade, and nothing at all like the prop she'd had earlier...

Jenny rounded on him, gasping and her eyes going wide and shocked. "You– you _defeated_ me, Scholar! In combat, even." Smiling suddenly, she flung herself at him, wrapping both arms around his neck and melting full length against his body, her mouth finding his and moulding to it like they were parts of a matched set.

Rupert Giles' eyes widened, shocked by Jenny's behavior. Then, considering that he was a perfectly healthy and red blooded British male, _not_ a _eunuch_, no matter Buffy and the other youngster's opinions on the matter, he briefly allowed himself to submerge in the madness, and kissed her back. Thoroughly. And at length.

Jenny's eyes closed, and she melted even _more_ thoroughly against him, until she was moaning into his mouth and wrapping a long tanned leg around the back of his thigh and making little hitching motions with her hips.

_**Zorch!**_

Oh, hell.

Giles opened his own eyes and pushed Jenny back just in time to see the fool with the butter knife go flying back from the telly to crash into the wall of the lounge, and then slide down it. Faint wisps of smoke came from the hand clenched around the blackened implement, and his mouth and ears. And all of his hair was standing on end like that one Stooge, Larry...

"Oh, hell," Giles said, aloud this time. Pushing Jenny firmly away, he strode over to the fellow, placing his finger tips against the pulse points on the idiot's throat. Oh, good. He yet lived. Bloody marvelous.

When he had agreed to be sent here as a school librarian, he _hadn't_ realized that also entailed periodically being an adult nanny.

Principal Snyder, wearing some sort of ridiculous Harlequin outfit, said something that sounded like "Woo-eee!" and tossed the entire contents of the punch bowl on the sparking and smoking remains of the television.

It died with a smell of scorched electronics, a roil of black smoke, and a horrid noise.

"Bloody wonderful."

Giles looked at Snyder, looked at the unconscious – but still living – Mr. Feinstein, looked at the radiantly flushed and aroused Jenny, staring at him with a face full of open lust, looked down on the sword in his hand... and _manfully_ resisted a sudden urge to commit Seppuku.

It probably wouldn't help.

Giles looked around the lounge. At the moment, there didn't seem to be any other scenes of impeding mayhem or calamity. Although... apparently he wasn't the only male here engaged with ladies with amorous issues. Albeit that most of the males so involved didn't seem to see them as issues, precisely. Sighing, Giles decided to leave those situations be, no matter how indecorous they might be. At least they weren't harming themselves or anyone else. Well, with the possible exception of Coach Marin and the lunchroom lady. Giles shuddered and forcibly looked away. That...

That was just disturbing.

And now Snyder and Mrs. Finkle? Well, he certainly couldn't fault the little troll for taste. The diminutive thirty year old blonde _was_ a nice bit of all right...

He really, earnestly needed to get to the library, but there was no way he could leave this room full of... adult _children_... alone. There was no telling what they would do, and he had no desire to suddenly find himself in a burning school house.

For one thing, he would never ever be able to get all of his books and weapons out before the library caught.

Catching sight of yet _another_ idiot about to do something foolish, albeit not deadly _this_ time, he turned on them, roaring, "_Stop_ that, you bloody _arse!_"

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: I__mojin Parkway near __3rd Avenue, Sunnydale, Evening 5:30pm – _

"All right," First Sergeant Benjy managed to gasp out, "Halt." She came to a stop, bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

Most of the other members of the First Sunnydale Irregulars of the Central North American Resistance Command, did just that, straggling to a halt and either bending over to catch their wind, or flopping down on the sidewalk or grass, breathing heavily. Including Private Kitty Kat, Private Pooka, Private Princess Wicked, Private Devila, and Corporal Bucky. A number of them kept going, until Bev got enough breath back to yell, "I said, _Halt_! And fall in."

They did, this time. Turning, the rest of the group came straggling back, some of them grumbling.

"Why?" said Private Lady Robin, aka Kit Holburn, one of Bev's own classmates. "That guy back there... "

"Doesn't seem to be chasing us," Corporal Bucky said. "And we might want to catch our wind and rest in case we have to run again."

"Yeah," First Sergeant Benjy said, straightening. "No point in getting so winded we _can't_ run any more and something _catches_ us."

Several of them nodded at that, with a couple looking alarmed, and casting frightened looks around the area.

Nothing seemed like it was about to pounce out and eat their faces. Luckily.

"Ok... " Sergeant Benjy said, looking around. She took a quick head count, after a moment's thought. They'd lost a few people who'd run off after the initial, uh, whatever, and the altercation that followed. And apparently the rest of the now weird kids had scattered when that Evil Dragon Sorcerer guy had appeared. And almost all girls now except for, uh, Bev threw a quick glance around... Corporal Bucky, Maverick, Private Presley, and Pirate Roberts. They'd lost all but _four_ of the guys during the change and the fracas. Huh.

First Sergeant Benjy just couldn't seem to manage to feel too awful bad about losing the others, even though some of those kids had been classmates or schoolmates. Uh, with an emphasis on _was_, maybe. Given the way that Private Red-Devil and Private Wolf-man, formerly Vanessa Johannssen and Tommy Dawkins had attacked them, it didn't seem like a bad thing to _not_ have them along. Or the other, uh, transformers.

Ok, so... minus the missing, driven off, and fled, she had, huh, amazingly, all of First and Second Squads, and most of Third. And Misty Pantine, who'd been one of Lady Willow's kids who'd joined them and hadn't seemed to either transform or run off. Ok, all but one of Third Squad, if you counted the apparently transformed Private Pooka, Private Kitty, Private Devila, and Private Princess Wicked.

She didn't feel comfortable calling them by their real names, given how they were looking and acting.

So. Twenty-six, plus one, out of what had briefly been thirty odd plus kids. Not too bad, she supposed. She'd seen war movies where platoon sergeants didn't manage to keep that many together in a sudden war zone.

That gave Beverly pause... but they weren't _in_ a war zone. Were they? Huh. Given what had just happened, maybe she should think that way, and act like it...

Pvt Saavik, aka Nikki Hudson from her own school and grade, was turning in a small circle and aiming the fake tricorder she'd been carrying around them. Sergeant Benjy gave the girl an amused look. hey, if it kept her happy and occupied, what the heck.

The other girl gave a satisfied looking nod, and reached up to snap a switch on the tricorder, and then looked at Beverly. "There doesn't seem to be any life forms, hostile or otherwise, in our near vicinity, Captain. Aside from those in the various dwellings, of course."

Sergeant Benjy nodded. And then blinked, and looked harder at the other girl. Waitaminnit...

Nikki had been dressed in one of the brick red and white uniforms from the movies, like Wrath of Khan, and Search for Spock (which Bev had seen on cable and thought were pretty good). The uniform looked subtly... different now. And those ears no longer looked like stick ons. They looked _real_.

"That thing actually _works_?" Sergeant Benjy wandered over to her, looking at the piece of equipment curiously.

"Of course, Captain," Nikki, err, Saavik, gave her an affronted look. Like she'd insulted her child or something. "I keep my equipment exactingly maintained and calibrated at all times, as per standing regulations."

"Of course you do," Sergeant Benjy said, more than just slightly boggled. "Uh, do you happen to have your phaser?"

"Um," Saavik reached to her belt, and then glanced away, flushing slightly and looking faintly embarrassed. "I seem to have misplaced or lost it, Captain."

"Sergeant, or First Sergeant, not Captain," Beverly corrected, a bit absently. She'd earned that promotion from Tech-sergeant Hicks, and she was actually kinda proud of it, darn it.

"Of course, Captain."

Sigh. "All right," Sergeant Benjy had a sudden thought and said, "I want _everyone_ to sound off so I can take head count. And _use_ and gimme your _real_ names."

There was a ragged groan from the group, but slowly, everyone called out their names and "Present!"

Crap. Beverly resisted another urge to find something hard, like a lamp post, and bang her head against it. Darn it.

_Everyone_ except for Misty Pantine had called out the squad nicknames – and ranks – they'd either jokingly picked out, or had jokingly had assigned to them by Tech-Sergeant Xander. Bev _didn't_ think they were joking when they did so, either.

Misty looked at her and said, a bit plaintively, "I want to go home. I'm not having fun any more."

First Sergeant Benjy just looked at her and sighed, and said, "You and me both, kiddo."

* * *

"_Creed!_" Daniel Rand yelled as he ran full tilt toward the scene of impending murder. The huge, cat like mutant glanced up, halting the downward stroke of the talons, and grinned with a mouthful of teeth. Lambent yellow eyes lit up in unholy delight.

"Well, well, well," Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth rumbled out as he straightened from his prey. "Little Danny Rand, all growed up now."

The girl Creed had been about to savage screamed again and scrambled back on her elbows and heels, at least attempting to put some distance between herself and her attacker. Danny knew it wouldn't help if the mutant decided to turn his attention back to her. The killer could pounce and strike faster than thought, almost.

Definitely faster than Danny could cover the remaining three quarters of a block of distance...

"_Run_," Danny shouted back over his shoulder to Aura, "I _mean_ it." He didn't look to see if she obeyed the shout.

Creed grinned nastily as Danny came nearer. "That won't help. After I gut you, I can sniff out your frail anywhere she goes."

Danny didn't waste any more breath on talk. As he sped toward the monstrous killer, once again Daniel Rand submerged and Iron Fist, Champion of K'un-L'un and member of Heroes for Hire arose within him. When he reached an optimal distance, he converted his forward momentum into a running leap and launched himself into a flying side kick at Creed's face, all one hundred and ninety pounds of muscle and sinew concentrated on the ball of his right foot.

It never landed.

Creed suddenly wasn't there, and a clawed hand closed around Iron Fist's ankle as the cat-like mutant snatched him out of the air.

All of the breath left Iron Fist's body as he was whirled and then slammed on his back against the pavement, all of his momentum converted to impact. He didn't feel anything break, but that was small consolation. Black spots danced before his vision as all of the breath whuffed out of him.

He forced himself to roll and move, painfully coming back up onto his feet again and gasping desperately for air.

In this fight, if you went down for more than a split second, you died. Badly.

Creed sneered at him, an almost playful expression, and made a classic 'bring it on' gesture with his clawed hands. "Let's see what you got, Danny Boy. I've been waiting a _long_ time for a rematch."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sheffield Drive near Dahlia Street, Sunnydale, Evening – _

From her perch atop the roof of a nearby two story house, Kendra the Vampire Slayer watched as the huge lion demon thing snatched the green suited man from the air and slammed him against the street. Her wince vanished and her eyes widened as she watched in amazement as the green suited man somehow managed to keep moving even in the face of that hellish impact, rolling to his feet and dropping into a shaky combat stance.

Shaky, but still better than textbook perfect.

Kendra couldn't identify the man's styles, but she could recognize skill, ingrained discipline, and training when she saw it. The man's movements when he'd fought the were being had been incredible. His skill and technique far outclassed even her own.

She did not believe that that was going to help him in this encounter.

Kendra had been following the trio of teens associated with the former Watcher ever since they had arrived at, and then left the High School. Simple enough: no one had questioned yet one more fifteen year old girl mingling with the crowds of teens in the hallways, even one not in costume. It had disappointed her that the dark haired girl who associated with them at times did not stay with the group, but she was unable to follow the girl's vehicle.

She had found the dark haired boy and girl's altercation with the larger teen as fascinating as she had found the boy and girl's conversation nearly incomprehensible...

By the time darkness began to fall, she was also disappointed that the apparent activities of the other three, escorting costumed children, had been their _actual _activity. _Not_ a mask for their own nocturnal investigations into whatever dark forces were at work this night.

Kendra had cursed softly under her breath at length in French, Latin, and Swahili at herself for her miscalculations. It hadn't helped, but it did relieve some of her frustration and chagrin.

When the three split on various streets, as she'd been unable to follow each group, she had elected generally to follow the dark haired male teen. His actions in organizing his group of children into military units and assigning them groups, and designating team leaders and officers, had fascinated her. What she had been able to overhear of his joking patter to them had been confusing and hard for her to understand, but she had been able to follow the gist of it at times.

He considered himself a warrior, apparently, and he was determined that the children in his care would follow safety and combat protocols for their own protection and efficiency. And he was doing so in a manner that they could understand and that was entertaining to them – making it a game, but a serious one.

Kendra approved, wholeheartedly. Protection of the innocent was the primary drive of the Slayer. It even took precedence over slaying demons, or would if slaying was not the surest path to protecting the greatest number of innocent lives...

And, unless she was mistaken, this was the associate of the former Slayer's who had helped to bring down the Master, Heinrich Nest. He was the one who bore watching, according to the analysis of the Head of the Council's report that her Watcher had made. She had some disquiet over the fact that he had apparently teamed with Angelus, Scourge of Europe, to do so, but...

For a mortal human, and one who was _not_ evil, to ally himself with Angelus _and_ to survive the alliance was impressive as well.

Therefore, she was perched on a nearby garage when the wave of magic swept across everything, and had felt the surge of mystical energies pass by and through.

That was what had led to the cursing fest. Kendra knew then that she had failed in her primary directive: to locate the source and prevent the dark rising. She only hoped that it was not too late to fulfill her second goal: to locate the caster and break the enchantment causing it.

She was still cursing and debating her next course of action when the blue-white glow took the dark haired teen and he vanished. And was staring at the spot where he'd been when it returned and deposited the other teen in the green and gold costume.

At first, she had taken him for a sorcerer, as had the children, and she had nearly leapt down to slay him. Then the screams had come, and the roaring sounds, and she decided to follow him as he ran toward the source, to see what he was about. There had been a momentary hesitation as she debated following the children, but she determined that getting to the source of the disturbance took precedence over protecting individual innocents.

Not without a twinge of conscience, however. Protecting children was a strong drive within her.

As a result, she had been in place to watch the encounter with the were beast, and eavesdrop a bit upon the conversation between the green man and the feline suited girl. Parts of it had escaped her: she obviously hadn't had the context to understand them, but other parts had been obvious. It was also obvious that the young man was no sorcerer, and no villain. He was a warrior like herself, and a very skilled one indeed.

Unfortunately, the beast thing he had launched himself heedlessly into combat against, in defense of the gold, white, and blue dressed girl of the Watcher's associates, far outclassed him in everything except skill. It had the obvious advantage in speed, strength, and ferocity – _everything_ except skill.

The green and gold clad warrior's _skill_ was unparalleled in her experience.

Sighing, Kendra drew her short sword and launched herself from the rooftop to join the fray. She earnestly hoped that she was not making a grave error and preparing to give her life and lose her chances of stopping the rising effect. But... it could not be helped.

A Slayer slew demons and protected the helpless. It was what they were for.

If she died in the process, so be it.

* * *

.


	11. And Oft From the Scantiest of Materials

**Chapter Ten: And Oft From the Scantiest of Materials...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sheffield Drive near Dahlia Street, Sunnydale, Evening – _

Iron Fist was _not_ having a very good night. For one thing, he was in the fight of his life. For another, he was barely holding his own. Actually... he was barely managing to stay alive, much _less_ hold his own.

Immortal Gods of K'un-L'un. He didn't remember Sabretooth being _this_ deadly the previous time he'd tangled with him, in the museum when Creed had been partnered with the Constrictor. Or the time after that, in the Savage Land. Or any of the other two times...

Obviously, the man had been working out. And training. And eating his ferocity pills...

Once more, he narrowly dodged a swipe of a massive set of claws. Once more, he converted the movement into a side kick that landed in the mutant's midsection. In theory, at least. In practice... Creed almost contemptuously slapped the foot to one side and retaliated with a back handed swipe that did connect with Iron Fist's chest, and sent him flying to sprawl on the grass of a lawn ten feet away.

Grinning maliciously, Creed shivered all over and bounded at the fallen Iron Fist like a hairy, fanged rubber ball.

Rolling to one side so that the pounce narrowly missed him, Iron Fist once more painfully flipped himself to his feet. He'd feel a lot better about the maneuver, however narrow of a margin it had succeeded by, if he _didn't_ think that Creed was just playing with him.

If he could just catch his breath, things might be different. The first slamming impact against the street had left him bruised, aching, and winded, and Sabretooth had never once left him a moment's respite to recover from it. By now, Iron Fist was running almost solely on reflexes, training and instinct, and sheer nerve.

It was a testimony to the intensiveness of the training given to acolytes in K'un-L'un and to Iron Fist's mastery of the skills and disciplines involved that those skills were keeping him alive and so far unscathed. Even if he couldn't manage to take the initiative.

A slash of claws streaked toward his face and Iron Fist bent backwards, leaning away from the strike. He succeeded. Mostly. The tips of the claws left a pair of parallel burning slices across his chin. Not deep, but painful, and debilitating if he acquired enough of them.

Iron Fist turned the lean into a backward arch that put his hands flat on the ground and he brought his legs up, doubled, and straightened them like an uncoiling spring. His twin heels caught Creed under the chin, snapping his head back and sending chips of broken teeth flying. He continued the movement into a hand over cartwheel and landed on his feet breathing heavily, as Sabretooth shook off the impact and launched himself back at his adversary.

If he could only get a moment's respite, he could call upon the power that was his namesake, and _end_ this, as he had done before.

It was a moment that Sabretooth clearly didn't intend to give him.

A fist full of talons skimmed across the top of Iron Fist's mask as he ducked under the blow. He lunged in himself, driving a flurry of hammer blows, right and left alternating, into the huge mutant's midsection. It was like hitting a wall of rubbery iron.

That was the major part of the problem.

Victor Creed was seven foot of solid muscle, sinew, and whalebone, and in _superb_ physical condition. Additionally, he was super-humanly strong, far stronger than Iron Fist, and almost supernaturally fast. Not too much faster than Fist, but it was taking all of the merely human warrior's skill and concentration and awareness to anticipate the movements and stay ahead of them. Plus... Creed had an intensive healing factor. He regenerated from injuries almost as fast as he received them, all but the deepest and most debilitating.

Crushing blows and strikes from hands and feet, he absorbed like Fist was striking at a semi's tire.

Abruptly, Creed threw back his head and yowled, howling in near agony. Iron Fist staggered back as the huge mutant spun on his heel and threw a savage back handed blow at something behind him.

The something was five foot seven inches of mocha skinned girl. Five foot seven inches of girl who had just slashed Sabretooth open along and across the length of his back with the tip of a short sword...

And Victor Creed was _not_ happy.

The back hand blow struck empty air. The girl threw herself under it into a forward roll, coming back onto her feet just past the huge mutant. The sword arced downward and back, slashing across the back of Creed's thigh.

It would have hamstrung him if not for the mutant's almost preternatural sense for danger. Creed yanked the leg out of the way just enough that the sword tip scored him deeply, but missed the tendon.

The return strike was vicious, and it _also_ struck only where the girl had just been.

She came up to a stance, rolling back to her feet even with Iron Fist and about ten feet away to his right.

"Thanks," Fist gasped, "Don't... know... where you came from... but... thanks." Oh, dear gods but the moment's pause to breathe was welcome.

The dark skinned girl threw him a sidelong glance from dark, almond shaped eyes. "Fight now," she said, "Talk later."

Good advice. Iron Fist had every intention of taking it.

"Huh. Another frail," Creed said. "After I've finished whoever _this_ is, you an' me are gonna have some fun, babe. You'll love it – to death."

"You... _know_ who I am, Creed," Iron Fist said. "Iron Fist."

"Naw. _You're_ some idiot freak in an Iron Fist suit," Creed said, snarling, "But you _ain't_ little Danny Rand."

The huge mutant launched himself back at them, and Iron Fist took the girl's advice. Fight now and live. Talk after. Iron Fist got an arm up and used a windmill block to redirect a hand strike, spinning away from the expected followup as the girl lunged in with her sword.

The clawed strike had been partly a feint. The follow up strike never came. Instead, Creed spun on his trailing foot and backhanded the girl across the face, sending her sprawling. Iron Fist more than half expected to hear the sickening crack of a breaking neck – the blow had had _that_ much force behind it. Creed used the momentum of the blow to continue the spin, coming out of it in a lunge directly for Iron Fist, one clawed hand going back for a killing stroke –

– and the lid of a metal trash can, thrown like a discus, hit with a metallic _whang_ off the side of Creed's head and ricocheted away.

Iron Fist took advantage of the big man's momentary wince and the breaking of his stride to leap to one side. The wince had been mostly startlement: Creed hadn't actually been injured...

"Hey! Ugly!" Aura yelled, "Leave my friend alone!"

Creed rounded on her, snarling. "They're _dead_. You're gonna _wish_ you were by the time I'm done with ya." His eyes widened slightly, and he dropped to all fours as another trash can lid sailed at his face.

Then, Creed screamed again as the dark skinned girl came up from behind and ran her sword through his body. The blow and the agony of it arched him back, throwing her off as he whirled, one clawed hand coming around to slash across her mid section. She went sprawling, slashed and bloody, the sword coming out and away to fall to the grass as it fell from her hand.

The fact that she had been already leaping back at the time was probably the only thing that saved her from disembowelment.

Creed rumbled deep within his chest, and began to move in to finish her, only to pull up abruptly.

There was a pale, dead looking red headed girl standing between him and the fallen mocha skinned girl, eying him curiously with her head cocked to one side.

Creed snarled and slashed his clawed hand at her in a swipe that should have disemboweled her where she stood. It didn't land.

Instead, it passed straight through her as if she wasn't there, and the momentum of the blow turned Sabretooth half way round, with an almost comical look on his face.

"You are boorish, and rude," the girl said. "But I'm not bored now."

"Another one like that friggin' Shadowcat the runt hangs out with," Creed said, rounding on her. The mocha skinned girl groaned, and rolled over, starting to work a hand up under her and trying to force herself up.

Iron Fist charged in, his right hand coming back and cocked for a blow. He didn't shout or waste energy on words. Nor did he do anything to warn his opponent...

He had used the brief moments of inattention to reach deeply within himself for the power that truly made him a force to be reckoned with in his world. Daniel Rand-K'ai – the Dragon of K'un-L'un...

The power of the molten heart of the Celestial Dragon Shou-Lao: the power of the Iron Fist.

Daniel Rand's right hand came around as he stepped in, already glowing like a meteor, and trailing a glowing line of red gold energy behind it. It left after images on the retinas of anyone watching as it connected with the mid section of the huge, Leonid beast man just as Creed swung around to deal with the approaching martial artist –

And hit with the sound of a thunderclap and the impact of a freight train.

It struck and doubled the mutant over, and sent him sailing back, up, and away from the strike. Iron Fist had, to pardon the turn of phrase, not pulled his punches in the least bit. The round house strike sent Victor Creed broken and tumbling, up and over the roof of the single story ranch home across the street, and away out of sight.

He was probably unconscious before he ever hit the ground, nearly a half a block away.

Daniel Rand dropped to his knees, breathing heavily as the glow faded from around his right hand, with dark spots shimmering before his vision. Out on his feet, and nearly unconscious.

The power of the Iron Fist was a deeply _draining_ thing to use...

From over to one side and somewhat behind them, he heard a female voice say in almost a tone of awe, "Wow. Holy fuck."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: I__mojin Parkway near __4th Avenue, Sunnydale, Evening 6:00pm – _

"Ok, so we're waiting here _why_ again?"

The girl's voice had a definite edge of a whine to it this time. First Sergeant Benjy (Beverly or Bev) Sheridan, Tech-Comm, First Sunnydale Irregulars of the Central North American Resistance Command, strenuously resisted the urge to strangle her sometimes friend Cassie Dunleavy, aka Private Hotstuff. Or at least slap the living snot out of her...

"_Because_," Sergeant Benjy said, patiently (more or less) setting out to explain once more and yet _again_. "Orders, dimwit. (Ok, so maybe _not_ so patient) It's what the Tech-Sergeant _said_ to do." She pointed up above the heads of their little group. "Streetlight. The Tech-sergeant said that if we got separated from him, to find a streetlight and wait until he sees we're gone and comes for us."

And they were about as separated as they could _get_, she reflected.

Private Hotstuff scowled at her, starting to sniffle. "I was just _asking_," she said, "You don't have to call me _names_. Meanie."

Jeeze. Sergeant Benjy resisted the urge to bury her face in her arms and start sniffling herself. She didn't think it would help. Besides, it was bound to be bad for morale... what little morale they had.

She wondered if it was easier to lead troops when they _weren't_ all eight, nine, ten, or eleven years old...

Probably not.

"I don't think that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows for Command Sergeants to call troopers mean names," her other sometimes friend, or at least classmate, Simone Deveaux aka Private General Sherman aka General Destruction said.

Sergeant Benjy stared at her. That sounded about as little like spoiled Simone as it was possible to get. The other girl stared back, giving a slightly apologetic looking shrug. "I'm just _saying_, is all," she added.

"She's right," Corporal Bucky, aka Johnny Smith, another classmate said.

"They do in all the war movies," Sergeant Benjy said. "And hey, what is this, a mutiny?"

"I think you can only have a mutiny at sea," Private Admiral Mayhem, also known in her off time as Bobbie Phillips, an eleven year old from a her own grade level and Simone's half sister said, "I _think_."

Beverly sighed. "Ok," she said. She looked at Private Hotstuff with a serious expression, and said, "I'm sorry. I won't call you names any more."

"Ok," the other kid said, looking suddenly a lot more cheerful.

And, sigh _again_. First Sergeant Benjy had been having a great time, earlier. Sure, they were just _playing_ at being soldiers, but hey: it had been fun. And Tech-sergeant Hicks (whose real name was Xander, he'd said, but he was Hicks tonight) had been loads of fun, too. And funny. He'd even gotten the kids who hadn't seemed enthused about being soldiers into the spirit of things.

And then, all of a sudden, it had gotten _cold_. And that weird glow had surrounded Tech-sergeant Hicks, and he'd started spitting out sparks and coils of energy like in some sci-fi show, and all of them had scrambled back wide eyed.

And then he'd _disappeared_. Just... _vanished_. Thin air. Poof! or more like, zorch! But still... wow.

And then everything had gotten really weird. She meant, really. Like that wasn't weird _enough_... And speaking of weird... Private Benjy looked at Claire Bennett, aka Private Pooka, an eight year old from a class or so behind hers.

Looked _up_ at Claire Bennett, who was _now_ suddenly no longer a regular sized eight year old, but around eight freaking inches or so tall, and _glowing_. And currently hovering around three feet off the ground because her gauzy little fairy wings were blurring and looking awful real, too.

All of the weapons were real now, too, just like Saavik's tricorder. She'd checked. Private Treasure had a _real_ revolver and bullwhip. And Private Pirate Roberts, Private Pirate Gwendolyn, and Private Swashbuckler Brigitte's 18th century style pistols were too, and didn't seem to need to be reloaded. Likewise for Private Lady d'Artagnan's musket. Which just wasn't _right_: Beverly's dad was into black powder shooting, and she knew that cap-lock pistols were one shot onlies. The rifled muskets were Hawken Rifles too, but Benjy figured that was the least of the weird, and overlooked it. (The owners didn't seem to notice) The swords were real, too, and Lady Robin's bow (which she'd demonstrated she could use like the _real_ Robin Hood) was a _real_ bow now, with real arrows, and Bucky's .45 auto.

Which meant Private Dread Pirate Roberts had _really_ shot were-Tommy with a _real_ bullet.

And _that_ made it all kind of _serious_, and not _fun_ any more, and all of the other kids – including Private Pooka, Private Kitty Kat, and Private Devila, were looking at _her_ like she was supposed to pull a _miracle_ out of her ass. Butt. Behind. Whatever.

Like she was in _charge_ or something.

Oh wait. Tech-Sergeant Xander _had_ left her in charge. Crap.

And she had twenty-six, plus one tiny pixie, out of what had briefly been thirty odd plus kids, to take care of. _Some _of whom were now _very_ odd kids...

"I really don't think the Tech-sergeant is coming to look for us," Corporal Bucky said.

"I'm hungry," Private Kitty Kat said. "And bored." She was looking up with fascination at the hovering, bobbing Private Pooka, with the tip of her tail twitching like she was thinking about pouncing and batting at the diminutive Claire. Or snagging her out of mid air and eating her.

Apparently, Private Pooka Bell thought so too, for she shot up several feet and a few feet farther away, and folded her arms across her chest and glared down at Private Kitty Kat.

"And I have to use the bathroom," Third Squad's Pvt Sergeant Cookie (ten year old Laurie Strode) said.

Sigh. First Sergeant Benjy wondered if bigger kids had problems like this. Maybe it got easier when you were an actual teenager.

"All right," she said, standing up. Beverly reached way down deep inside of herself to the buried memories of every single war movie she'd ever seen going all the way back to when she was a little kid and couldn't even _spell_ war movie, figuratively pulled on her big sergeant panties, and came to a decision. "All right!" First Sergeant Benjy said, again. Eyes all around snapped to her, most of them looking either hopeful or curious. "Ok, look, Johnny," she said, looking at Corporal Bucky, her nominal second in command.

"Bucky," he said. "It's Bucky. _Not_ Johnny. Corporal Bucky Barnes, _formerly_ Private First Class Bucky Barnes."

Bev looked at him harder. He didn't seem to be kidding. Bucky gave a kind of an apologetic little shrug, but looked stubborn about the whole thing. "Of course it is," First Sergeant Benjy said, nodding. "Corporal _Bucky_." She sighed. "All right!" she repeated. "We," she gestured at Bucky, "Have come to the conclusion that Tech-Sergeant Hicks isn't coming back for us, and we're on our own now."

"Aww, crap," Kit Holburn, aka Private Lady Robin Hood, said. "I was afraid of that." Misty nodded, her eyes big and scared looking.

"What are we gonna do?" someone else wailed. Sergeant Benjy wasn't real sure who...

"We," Sergeant Benjy stated, "Are gonna complete our mission."

"But I do not _wish_ to forage any longer," Private Princess Wicked said. She stamped her foot. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I am surrounded by all of you low people and these... " she gestured at Private Kitty, Private Pooka, and Private Devila, "_Things_, and I _wish_ to go back to my estates."

"Hey! I'm not a _thing_, Princess Stuck Up," Private Devila said, almost growling it. Oh, gods, were her eyes glowing? "I'm a demon from a long and royal line of Demon Princes and Princesses. So... _bite_ me."

"Oh yeah?" Princess Stuck Up, err, Private Princess Wicked stepped forward, glowering down from her extra two inches of height at the red dressed (and red skinned now) girl.

A shrill whistle cut across the impending brawl as Bev stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out her best and shrillest blast. "Aw right, time out, neutral freaking corners," she yelled. "Knock that the heck off."

"Why?" both of them said, nearly in unison, staring at her.

"Because," First Sergeant Benjy said, stalking up to them. She drew herself up to her full (not very impressive, she was a fairly short, skinny eleven year old fifth grader) four foot four (and one _half_) inch height, and glared up at both of the two taller girls. Or whatever they were. "I _said_ so. And if I _have_ to, I _will_ violate the freaking US Code of Military Whatevertheheck it is and knock _both_ of your freaking heads together until you decide to _cooperate_ with each other _and_ the rest of us. GOT IT?"

The last two words were delivered at full volume in the very best Drill Instructor voice Bev could steal from somewhere, anywhere.

She _really_ hoped neither of the two taller girls were gonna call her on it.

Gulp. "Got it."

"Got it."

"Good."

All of the other kids were now looking at her wide eyed, and several of them looked either impressed, or half afraid of her. She figured she could live with both of those, at least until they got back to the High School. Heh. Private Kitty Kat was looking not only impressed, but half in love, with a huge Cheshire Cat grin on her face.

"Aw right, listen up, darn it," Sergeant Benjy said, glaring around at everyone. "We are no longer a Foraging Unit. Our Mission _now_ is to get back to Base so that Command can take over this, uh, cluster heck. Any questions?"

"Yeah, how do I get _out_ of this chicken crap outfit?" someone called out, Bev couldn't see who... no matter, the comment brought out a gust of laughter and a general release of tension and nerves.

Corporal Bucky looked at her, grinning, and spread his hands. "You _did_ ask," he said.

"Teach me, won't it?" Bev said, grinning back at him. "Ok, any _other_ questions?"

Private General Sherman, Private Admiral Mayhem, and Private First Class Captain Maverick, uh... whom she thought was really named Chris something, uh, Castille, that was it, all raised their hands.

"Yeah?"

"Um, we don't want our heads knocked together," Private General Sherman said, "But we were wondering: why exactly are you in charge again?"

"Because... " Sergeant Benjy paused, thinking real hard. Wow. An opportunity to pass this off on someone else... no. Half, or _more_ than half, going by the way they were acting, of these kids had something strange going on that made them not quite themselves. She didn't know what, but it was there, and not just in three or four who were suddenly not people kids any more. Like glowing faerie Private Pooka.

She wasn't sure, but she didn't think she could trust them to not do something bizarre, weird, or dangerous to everyone else. And, she also wasn't sure, but she thought she might just be the only one here aside from Private Misty Pantine who knew who she was. Which meant... crap. Which meant she was the almost the only one who knew where they were going, even, and why. And Misty was a ditz, which meant...

"Because. Tech-Sergeant Hicks _put_ me in charge when he promoted me to Squad First Sergeant of this Foragers Group," Beverly said, "And until he or someone else who _outranks_ him tells me otherwise, I'm stuck with it. Problem?"

Private General Sherman and Private First Class Captain Maverick looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded. "Guess not. Just wondering."

"I do have another question, though," Private Admiral Mayhem said. And, case in point: Bev didn't remember Bobbie Phillips ever having an upper class British accent before, or showing any sign of being able to fake one convincingly. "Doesn't an Admiral outrank a Sergeant First Class?"

"Well, yeah, normally," Beverly said, nodding. She stepped up to the taller girl, but not in a threatening manner. "On a_ ship_. Do you see a ship, or any ocean where we're at?"

"Umm. No, I'm afraid not," the other girl said. She grinned suddenly. "All right then. Carry on, ma'am."

"I _still_ have to use the bathroom," Third Squad's Private Sergeant Cookie said.

"Umm... " Bev looked around them. Sheesh. Heck of a place for that to come up. "Can you hold it for awhile?"

"But... I've _been_ holding it!"

Crap. Sergeant Benjy looked around them. Ok, houses on one side of the Parkway, which didn't seem like a great idea, all things considered. And the dark expanse of a section of Breaker's Wood on the other side, the side they were on. Ulp. Or possibly someone's estate grounds. Weren't those the areas where the Chase's and the Breckenridge's lived?

Bucky pointed at a clump of shrubs about twenty feet away, and said, "On bivouac, I think you're going to have to rough it."

"Eeewww!"

"Jeeze," Bucky said, rolling his eyes, "How did you ever make it through Basic, Private?"

"We had latrines!"

"Well, we're fresh out of anything to dig with," Sergeant Benjy said. "So, either hold it for now, or... " she shrugged.

"Crap." Private Sergeant Cookie said, "All _right_." With a martyred expression, she started to trudge toward the bushes.

"Wait!" Benjy had a sudden thought. They never did see where the other dangerous kids and things ran off to... and not so long ago, there had been a lot of roaring and screaming and what sounded like a serious fight from back up the direction they came from. Cookie looked back at her, scowling, and Benjy pointed at Private Pirate Roberts, Pvt Brigitte the Lady Swashbuckler, and Private Pirate Gwendolyn and said, "You three go with her and keep your weapons ready. And you, Roberts – don't peek."

The three of them trudged off, and Benjy sighed. One more command decision done with. "And anyone else that has to go, we'll take turns." A lot of the kids looked at the dark expanse of trees and shrubs, and shivered. No one volunteered.

"I'm _still_ hungry," Private Kitty Kat said. "But I'm not bored any more."

"Well, if you eat Private Pooka, I'll- I'll, uh, be really mad at you," Beverly said. The cat girl grinned back at her, and nodded. "We'll get something to eat as soon as we can. Don't you have any candy left?"

"Lost my candy thing," Private Kitty Kat said, shrugging. Which made sense, a _lot_ of them had in that first screaming run from glowing dragon guy. There were probably bags of candy scattered from part way to here all the way back to Sheffield.

"All right. That's taken care of." Bev nodded, and then looked back at her little group of command dissenters. Struck by an inspiration, she impulsively made what was to prove to be the first in a very _long_ line of executive command decisions.

"All right," she said again. "Corporal Bucky – you're now my Staff Corporal and XO. Private Hotstuff? You're now Private Corporal Hotstuff. You have First Squad, under me. Private General Sherman?" The other girl snapped to and looked attentive and inquiring. "You're _second_ in command of First under PC Hotstuff, if you think you can handle it."

"Ma'am! Can do, ma'am," Private General Sherman snapped Bev a very crisp looking salute.

"Private Admiral Mayhem," Bev said, falling completely into her First Sergeant Benjy role now, "You have Second Squad, under Bucky. Appoint yerself a second as your first command decision, and fall to it."

"Yes, ma'am!" Mayhem stepped back, blinking and looking suddenly thoughtful.

"'Kay, now: Private Maxie!"

"Yes'm," the WAC dressed girl said, snapping a salute.

"You're now Private First Class Maxie, and you have Second in Third Squad under Private Sergeant Cookie, got it?" the girl nodded, suddenly wide eyed, and First Sergeant Benjy nodded in satisfaction. That got most of her actual _military_ kids into positions of leadership and responsibility...

"Hey, lookit that!" Corporal Bucky said, pointing.

Huh. Sergeant Benjy blinked, stared, blinked again, and stared some more. She resisted an urge to rub her eyes.

Private Incantasia (Susan Silverman from her own squad) and Private Goth Witch Glenda (Second squad's Beverly Barlowe) were off to one side giggling and making sparklies with their hands and fingers. What made Bev stare and blink was... they didn't seem to have anything to make sparklies _with_. Shrugging and shaking her head, she wandered over, Corporal Bucky trailing alongside.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" Bev asked, as casually as she could.

"Making magic!" Incantasia said, her eyes wide and excited. Glenda nodded enthusiastically.

"Wow. You can, uh, do real magic?" Bucky asked, blinking. He looked like he was having as boggled a mind as Bev was.

"I guess so," Glenda said, shrugging. "We just now thought about it and decided to try."

"Huh." Beverly and Bucky exchanged wondering looks, and then significant ones. "Well, I guess it's not any stranger than foot tall glowing pixies," Bucky said.

"Giving me some ideas," Benjy said. "When bathroom break is over, let's get everyone in a huddle and check a few things out, and then I wanna do some reorganizing and get this wagon train on the road."

Real weapons from fake ones, real Pixies, demons, and cat girls from costumes, and now _real_ magic from pretend magic. Suddenly, things were looking interesting...

Ok. So things had gotten serious on them. Time to get serious on their own in return, then. Beverly, aka First Sergeant Benjy of the First Sunnydale Irregulars decided then and there that she was going to get this group back to Sunnydale High School one way or another, whatever she had to do to do it. She'd been put in charge, and she was _not_ going to let Tech-sergeant Xander down.

No matter what had happened to him. She really hoped he was ok.

Quick personal inventory time. Her smaller Scout canteen was on her web belt. She had, in her fanny pack: emergency cash left over from her birthday money, some assorted change, her girl scout compass, a scrape-able metal-match thing, a Zippo, some light cord in a coil, a spool of braided 50lb test fishing line, some wire leader, a quarter roll of duct tape (which holds the Universe together), a small SOG multi-tool, a full blown "Champ" 17 tool Swiss Army knife, and her Old Timer three blade Scout jack knife. For _serious_ cutting jobs, where you _didn't_ want a blade folding or a knife slipping, she had a small, half edged, half serrated Ken Onion Kershaw folder clipped inside her jumper's pant's pocket. Plus, there were a few candy bars and granola bars she'd tucked away from her Trick-or-treat goodies, a mini-maglite with extra batteries, a sixteen ounce Coke, her Sony Walkman, and...

Reaching back into her fanny pack, she took out a contraption made of spring steel and dual twin lines of extra heavy duty surgical tubing with a moulded neoprene grip at one end and a moulded, grommeted neoprene pouch at the other, and began to unfold it and assemble it. She took out the stabilizers and screwed them in, and adjusted the wrist brace to length, carefully checking the tubing for cracks or wear.

Benjy nodded in satisfaction, loading the pouch with a marble, and doing a test draw back to her ear to check the sight... Ok, so it _wasn't_ a gun or a sword. It was a Barnett Magnum Pro hunter slingshot – a wrist rocket – with forward extended forks and heavy weight extended tubing. But a steel ball bearing or a glass marble at the velocities that a magnum wrist rocket could deliver them at... _definitely_ wouldn't do any hostiles any real _good_.

At full draw, the Barnett Magnum Pro could put a half inch hole all the way through a three pound steel coffee can at twenty-five yards. What it might do to a skull probably didn't bear thinking about...

She might not be _big_ or tall, but after four and a half years now of constant near every day shooting, she was seriously _wiry_ in the arms, wrists, and shoulders, and had a grip like a C-clamp.

And First Sergeant Beverly Sheridan, aka Sergeant Benjy, a long time tomboy, was _real_ darned good with a wrist rocket. She had _lots_ of marbles and ball bearings in her fanny pack and in her two web belt pouches. And there were _always_ rocks...

Play time's over, huh?

No problem.

* * *

.


	12. Mortal Encounters -

**Chapter Eleven: Mortal Encounters and Not Quite Midnight Requisitions...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: The Fish Tank, Sunnydale Waterfront District, Evening 5:__35__pm – _

Cliché, but the inside of the Fish Tank really _did_ fall into a hush as the tall, broad shouldered, heavily muscled, and very naked man walked in through the front door.

Several of the g-string clad dancers on the various runways and in the transparent fake tanks that gave the place its name, stopped gyrating against their poles, and a couple even gave out wolf whistles. Even the music died as the DJ boggled and accidentally killed the volume switch. _This_ was something you didn't see every night, not even here. The night bartender looked at the naked giant, and glanced to the front door, wondering why the bouncer hadn't stopped him.

Simple, really. The bouncer was lying sprawled against a wall in the foyer with a broken neck...

One of the waitresses stopped to gape and eye him up and down as he brushed past her, and said, "Hey! I get off at midnight, honey, if you're looking to put that thing to good use." Several of the nearest male patrons laughed.

The naked, blonde giant stopped near the pool tables at one side, near a group of bikers, truckers, and longshoremen playing at the various tables and looked them over as though he was measuring them for size or something.

He was.

One of the bikers, a huge, red bearded man named, unimaginatively, 'Red', said, "Hey, if you're looking for _that_ kind of action, you want the Rough Rider up the road, fella." That drew a lot of laughs also.

Giving a short nod, the naked giant's perusal stopped on one male biker his own height and nearly his own bulk and said, "Take off your clothes," in a Germanic accent of some sort.

The bartender was starting to think this all seemed somehow vaguely and oddly familiar, in a surreal sort of way...

"What the fu– ?" the biker he'd accosted apparently hadn't seen the same movies, because his eyes widened, and then narrowed. "Dunno what you're pullin' but you done picked the wrong place and guys." He drew back his pool cue and swung it forward –

It stopped, dead in the air, as it was caught with a meaty smack in a large fist. It was twisted out of his hands, and then snapped forward to strike him between the eyes, and then across at an angle to slam across his face.

One of the other bikers, the huge red bearded one, drew a hunting knife and lunged forward without comment or preliminaries. He'd learned his fighting in a rough school.

So, apparently, had his opponent. There was a sickening crack as his knife wrist was caught and twisted, and then a hand took him at belt and throat and with a twist of the body, the giant threw him across the room at the window.

He missed. Red smashed head first into the wall just next to the front window and there was another moist snap, and he fell in a heap at the floor beneath.

Most of the others around the pool tables at that point decided that discretion and valor were unmixy things and left the vicinity, with haste. One didn't, drawing a large, laser sighted .44 Magnum Desert Eagle from behind his hip and bringing it up.

His hand was caught before he could fully level it. The pistol went off with a deafening roar, aimed at the ceiling, and then he screamed as his fingers crackled and were broken against the grips and the steel frame. The giant brought his other hand up and around in a short, sharp arc, and there was another moist snap as the biker's head went back and then over at too sharp an angle.

The blond giant leveled the big automatic at the groggy and moaning leather and denim clad biker still rolling on the floor, one hand to his broken nose, and said, "Take off your clothes."

His eyes widening, the biker hastily pulled his hands away from his bleeding nose and started to unsnap and unfasten buckles, buttons and zippers.

.

Outside, a short while later, a local business man named Anthony Harris was working frantically at unlocking the door to his Lincoln SUV. The task was made harder not only by the four beers he'd tossed back – hey, Friday night, a few beers were required to celebrate the week ending – but his fumbling fingers made clumsy by his panicked haste to get away from the Fish Tank before the naked homicidal giant finished up in there.

He didn't quite manage.

A deep voice in a Germanic accent said, "I need your keys," from just behind and to one side of him.

Anthony Harris turned around, pressing himself back against the door of his truck. He wasn't a coward, by any means. No former marine was a coward. Any other time, and in any other circumstances, he'd still be inside enjoying and participating in the brawl the big guy had started... maybe even on the big guy's side. He kind of admired the young blond man's nerve and style.

But there was something outright inhuman about the way he'd taken out his opponents, and especially the way he'd just thrown three hundred and sixty pounds of Red fifteen feet to crash dead into the wall.

The formerly naked giant was now wearing the black jeans, Heavy Metal t-shirt, and black leather vest and leather biker chaps of the biker he'd accosted. And he had the long, black leather trench coat that the tall, big black guy that had been sitting at the bar down the way from Tony had been wearing. The idiotic one who'd headed _toward_ the fight, not away... Plus, he was holding the large caliber sawed off Winchester rifle the bartender had been bringing up from under the bar as Tony had been making his way away from the fight.

_That_ had gotten the bartender shot dead. This guy hadn't even been _looking_ that direction before he'd suddenly turned and nailed Clyde three times in the chest.

So, he nodded carefully, and held out his keys. "Sure," he said. "Hell, the damned thing is insured, anyway. I'll just walk home – the night air'll do me good."

"Thank you," the big guy said, seriously and without expression. He plucked the keys from Tony's hand and reached for the door as Tony stepped hastily to one side. "Oh, also... " the blond reached out suddenly and plucked Tony's RayBan Wayfarers off of the neck of his t-shirt, shaking them out and putting them on before getting into the SUV. "I'll need these."

"Sure, whatever you say, big fella," Tony said. Sheesh... he watched his nearly new Lincoln Blackwood drive off into the night, shaking his head. "I _gotta_ move out of this town."

The guys at the plant were _never_ gonna believe this one.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Private sailing vessel 'Windover', Sunnydale Yacht Basin, Evening 5:__40__pm –_

Gregory Kendall sipped his drink, watching a pair of scantily clad twenty year old girls in 'Shipmate Cutie' and 'Naughty Pirate Lass' costumes making out lustily on the rear deck of his private sailing barque. This nautical themed costume party had been a hell of an idea, he thought to himself, smugly. Ever since night fell, it had started loosening up nicely, and the guests – and staff – had gotten looser and looser, and wilder and wilder. Hell, it had loosened up even before the booze had started flowing very freely. He groaned, throwing his head, back, and reached down to pull the head of the curvy brunette in the 'Captain Kutie' costume deeper into his crotch.

He didn't particularly feel any guilt or apprehension at the fact that his wife was somewhere on board nearby. Hell, based on the way she'd been towing along that college kid by the crank, Melody Kendall was probably down below somewhere doing the same damn thing right now.

Like the two cabin attendants he was watching, a lot of the guests and the waitresses hadn't even bothered going below. Crew, either – more than half of them were sprawled out in various places making like a scene from one of Caligula's wilder parties.

Apparently, Pirate themes and Sailing themes were 'in' this year. Both Party Town and Costume World had sold out of both pirate and nautical themed outfits early. Gregory had had to get that Englishman at that Ethan's place to put in a special order for him for almost a hundred nautical costumes for both sexes so that he could have all of the crew, male and female, and all of the hostesses he'd hired for the evening dressed properly.

Or undressed _improperly_, he thought, chuckling.

The Ethan fellow hadn't blinked an eye, or raised an eyebrow at the specifications or the large order. He'd merely smirked, and said that it shouldn't be any problem: his suppliers had anticipated a rush on such things this season, and had assured him that any last minute orders could be filled without delay. True to his word, the delivery had arrived at the gangway of the Windover promptly at five PM the day before.

Nineteen officers and staff and forty-six crew of various types. And Gregory Kendall had hired catering staff and bartenders, waitresses, plus thirty-seven 'hostesses' to attend to his guests 'special needs', if any.

Staff and crew were all in nautical and sailor outfits, of course. The hostesses, and all female catering, bartender, and serving staff were split about evenly between a wide variety of 'Naughty Nautical Honey' outfits, and 'Racy Pirate Lass' costumes.

Guests, of course, were on their own. But his guests, like himself, were _more_ than quite capable of buying or leasing costumes to any theme from the finest and most exclusive shops in L.A. and Santa Barbara. He doubted _any_ of them had bought from any local shops, any more than he and Melody had.

Groaning again, Gregory Kendall pulled the brunette's rapidly moving head in tight as his thigh muscles clenched and she brought him to a finish. As she started to pull back, he pulled her down again, telling her to keep going. Once she'd, err, raised the flag again, he pushed her away roughly and moved to kneel behind the blonde Shipmate Cutie bartender, who currently had her face buried in the crotch of the red head in the skimpy Marauder's Wench outfit.

Intent upon his, ah, business, he'd never noticed when the other sailing yacht across the outer basin from his had shimmered all over, just after sundown, and gone decidedly retro, as his daughter might put it. Nor did he notice now as the now ragged and scorched looking eighteenth century three masted frigate put down landing boats.

Kendall had known, of course, that his business associate, Brackman Lee Walker, had also planned a nautical themed party – his a predominately buccaneer and privateer themed one. Hell, it was a natural for a wealthy yacht owner in the basin, and one who had the _other_ largest sailing yacht in the Sunnydale Yacht Club. He'd even given Lee the tip for Ethan's Costume Emporium to outfit _his_ crew, staff, and hostesses.

Brackman Lee had also purchased his Deluxe Sea Ghost Pirate costume from Ethan's stock of select outfits, as had his friend and associate, Camden Phillips also purchased his ensemble. Both the Jolly Roger and the Crossed Sword and Skull flags blowing from the flag mast had also been from Ethan Rayne's stock...

Brackman Lee Walker's ship, the Celestial Light, had already been a two-hundred and four foot replica of a three masted frigate. The surge of chaos magic had taken that and run with it during the transformations... Now she was a three masted, two-hundred and forty foot, nominally forty-four gun eighteenth century war frigate, with a beam of forty-three and a half feet and a crew of more than a hundred and seventy odd cutthroats.

More than a hundred and seventy, that is, given the number of crew, staff, hostesses, and guests who had gotten costumes from Ethan Rayne as well.

The boats swiftly made their way across the intervening distance. Closing upon the Windover, they made fast and threw up lines, which the boat's crews then swarmed up to reach the decks.

All of the crews of the boats were dressed as pirates and pirate wenches, with a few oddly dressed marines scattered about. All of the swords and hangars, daggers and percussion pistols they carried looked very, very real...

The Windover was a steel hulled, two-hundred and ninety-five foot sailing barque with three masts and over 6 miles of running rigging and approximately 22,300 square feet of sail area. She had a beam of thirty-nine feet, an auxiliary Caterpillar C399 diesel engine, and a draft of seventeen feet six inches. The Windover carried a current crew and staff of seventy-two. She currently, as noted, had thirty-seven 'special hostesses' on board, and over a hundred guests of both sexes, all in costume.

A large number of whom were currently engaged in some sort of, err, sporting activities.

Almost all of the crew, staff, and hostesses were wearing costume's ordered from Ethan's Costume Emporium. None of the male and female guests were, or at least very few of them.

It didn't take very long for the more than seventy-eight pirates, pirate lasses, and marines to swarm over every inch of the Windover.

Male guests were simply put to the sword or the gun out of hand. Female guests, all of them terrified, except for those not deemed comely enough, were simply pressed into, um, service as soon as the ship was secured, and then clapped into irons and transported over to the pirate's vessel. The not too unwilling hostesses were simply pressed into service and left aboard under the guard of a detachment of the brigand assault crew.

Of the costumed staff and crew, those who resisted were killed. Those who did not, were given a choice. Those who accepted the choice, were press ganged and became marauders and pirate crew members. Very few of them resisted, especially after seeing the fate of the guests and those who did resist.

Gregory Kendall was left sprawling dead with his yardarm hanging out on a deck awash in blood.

More boats, these containing a prize crew under the command of Captain Black Jack Tar, the former Camden Phillips, crossed the intervening waters to join the remaining buccaneers and marines. Once aboard, they ran a Skull and Crossbones up the flagstaff, and the steel hulled Windover shimmered all over and became a steel hulled seventy-two gun barque of somewhat more ancient vintage...

Once all of the pirates were back on board with their prizes and new crew members, the other ship, the newly christened "Bloodfin", pulled up anchor and set sail for Sunnydale Harbor. The Windover raised anchor and followed it.

Splashes in its wake marked where the dead and dying met with an impromptu burial at sea.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Downtown Sunnydale near East Lemon and 5th Street, Evening 5:40pm – _

Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks looked out of the mouth of the alley and across the street at the sign proclaiming to the world: "Cagler's Thrift Store! Second Hand Clothing and Surplus!"

Just across the four lane street, and up several store fronts from him. Maybe thirty five or so meters. Quick dash. Piece of cake.

Or it would be for anyone who wasn't currently stark freaking naked except for a couple of tattoos, a small leather folder on a neck thong and two photos.

Hicks sighed. At least there didn't seem to be much traffic. Just... some. And only a few passersby. Luckily, he didn't seem to have been deposited on Wilkins or any of the other main streets he'd memorized from the maps in his briefing. Instead, the leap had dropped him in an alleyway some blocks from the center of downtown, in what looked to be like a second or third tier commercial area filled with older buildings and stores.

Which looked like _new_ stores to him, but never mind that.

Except for maybe when he was a teenager, Dwayne Hicks had never _seen_ a store except in videos. Not that he could really clearly remember any longer. Just burned out and blown out husks of what had once been them.

Enough, he said to himself. Your danglies aren't going to get any less air if you keep squatting here dithering. And the terminator might close in on his target if you waste enough time.

That was enough to get him moving. Fast, and in a kind of hunched over run, one hand front and back trying to shield his nether regions.

It didn't help, but at least he didn't get any screams. Just a few laughs and some pointed fingers and loud comments. And a car horn or two.

And one loudly called out comment from a female voice yelling what sounded like "Hey! baby!" and a wolf whistle.

Grr.

He slammed the door to the thrift store closed behind himself, breathing heavily and ignoring the jangling bell.

"Hey! You can't come in here like that!" an outraged female voice shrilled at him. "Can't you read the sign?"

Hicks looked over at the owner of the voice, a heavy set, blueish haired woman in her probably late fifties, and followed her pointing finger to a sign that said: 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service!' and 'We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone' underneath that.

"Yes ma'am,'" he said. "I plan on fixing all three of those if you'll give me a minute." Hicks threw a fast and appraising look around the store, trying to locate where the things he would need were so he could get to them in the fastest and shortest possible time.

"Are you trying to be funny?" the woman said, "And what are you planning to pay with?"

"No ma'am," Hicks said, starting forward, "Not funny at all."

"You get out of here! You – you're that Harris kid that was in here before, aren't you? Damned Harrises were never anything but trouble."

Ignoring the rest of the diatribe, Hicks ran over to an isle and hastily started sorting through a rack of trousers. Finding a pair of camouflage, cargo pocket jeans in his size, he pulled them on, hopping on one foot and then another as he pulled them on over his legs.

"I'm warning you! I'm calling the cops!" the woman called back.

Based on what he'd been told about Sunnydale cops in his briefings, that wasn't much of a threat. Hicks would be long gone by the time they arrived, he was sure.

Moving quickly, he grabbed a black t-shirt from a rack that had some sort of slogan on it – what was an 'Iron Maiden' anyway? – a woodland camo shirt, and a long, lightweight olive drab fatigue coat, pulling them on hastily as he went. Spotting the shoes and boots aisle, he went through it at a run, hastily grabbing up and discarding boots until he found a pair of black and camo hiking boots in his size. Grabbing a pair of white athletic socks, he sat and hurriedly pulled them on, then the boots over them as quickly as possible.

He didn't really have time to do up the laces, but he couldn't afford to trip on them either. He hastily worked them through the eyelets and around, cursing under his breath all the way. Hadn't had time for the socks either, but... 'take care of your feet and they'll take care of you' is something every soldier had drilled between their ears early. Blisters could turn septic and cripple you, or at least impair your mobility at a critical time.

"I'm sorry, son," a man's voice said, "I appreciate your situation, but I can't let you just _have_ that stuff. You heard my wife: you'll have to put it back and leave."

"Sir," Hicks said, standing. His voice sounded almost desperate to his own ears. "I _promise_ that I'll pay you for them as soon as I can. But I _need_ this stuff."

The storekeeper, a not unkindly looking gentleman in his sixties with a large paunch and a fringe of white hair, shook his head. Lowering his voice, he said, "It was up to me, yeah. What is this, some sort of High School hazing?"

"Yeah, something like that," Hicks said, taking several steps towards him.

"But my wife doesn't see it like that," the man said, spreading his hands helplessly. He jerked his head and the faded blue eyes in the general direction of the door, stepping slightly to one side of the aisle as Hicks moved toward him. When Hicks frowned, he sighed and did it again, turning just a bit.

With sudden understanding, Hicks smiled and nodded slightly. Running forward abruptly, he shoved at the man's shoulder, pushing him out of his way with amazing ease. Amazing if he hadn't been pretty sure the man stepped aside rather than staggering. The guy yelled "Hey!" and jolted into the shelves next to him as Hicks ran past him and down the aisle.

"I'll pay you back!" Hicks yelled as he neared the doors. "Promise!"

Yanking the doors open, he threw himself outside and skidded to a halt outside. Now, where... he threw a fast look around.

And, crap.

Sunnydale PD might be just this side of incompetent, corrupt, and lazy as all get out, like he'd been told.

The Sunnydale County Sheriff's Department was apparently made of better stuff, and had better response time. Or else this car had just happened to be nearby when the call went out.

A siren made an aborted 'whoop!' and the blue and red lights on top began to flash as the car pulled in just ahead of Hicks, bumping up onto the curb and blocking the way that direction. Hicks spun on his heels and turned to run as both doors flew open.

The sound of a shot and a shouted "Freeze!" brought him to an abrupt halt.

Damn, but the locals were quick on the trigger. And not nearly far enough behind him to take a chance on them being completely piss poor shots and missing. Even _one_ bullet in the back could bring an abrupt end to his mission.

And a much slower but still permanent end to the world and humanity, as well.

Scowling, Dwayne Hicks raised his hands to head level and turned around slowly as a female cop's voice yelled, "We won't ask again!"

A male deputy had his automatic aimed at Hicks, braced against the side of the patrol car's window frame, his eyes unreadable behind a pair of aviator glasses. Looked like a Smith & Wesson auto, with a large caliber hole in the muzzle. The female deputy the voice had belonged to had her revolver braced in the gap between her door frame and the car's windshield frame, also aimed at him. As he turned and came to rest, the male cop said, "Down on the ground! Now!"

Hicks didn't make any threatening moves – in fact, he did his best to slump and make himself look as _non_threatening as possible – just set his jaw and stood there. He pasted an uncomprehending look on his face and a sickly smile on his lips and said, "I'm sorry? I don't understand," in Finnish, one of the few other languages he knew.

One he was pretty sure few if any local cops would know...

The female deputy gave him a disgusted look, and threw her partner a sardonic glance. "Why do _we_ get all the weirdos?"

Her partner repeated the command slowly, and then again, slowly and much more loudly before making a disgusted sound. Moving around the car door, he approached Hick slowly, making it clear as possible with gestures for him to not move. Hicks shrugged and continued to look harmless, stupid, and uncomprehending.

"Dunno," he called over to the female deputy, "But we surely the hell do." He stopped a few feet away from Hicks as his partner came around the rear of the car. "Cuff him while I keep him covered," he added.

The dark haired and complected female deputy gave a nod, looking down to holster her revolver as she came up to one side, her other hand reaching back, presumably to her handcuff case.

Hicks almost wanted to curse at them and chew them out for lack of discipline. Almost. The Sunnydale County Sheriff's Department might be fast on response times, and might be decent cops, even... but they were piss poor combatants.

You never ever stood too close to someone you had under the gun. Why close to _knife_ range when you have a gun? And you never, _ever_ took your eyes off of a presumably dangerous opponent.

A quick, short step, and a grab, a twist, and a wrench, and Hicks had the Smith & Wesson automatic and the male deputy had a broken trigger finger. The female looked up, her eyes widening, just in time for Hicks to side step and chop her across the throat with the edge of his other hand. Hard enough to take all the fight out of her, but not hard enough to crush the larynx and kill.

Hicks had nothing against the local police of this time, and he'd really prefer to not kill any human beings if he could help it. There weren't enough of them left in his time to waste any.

He finished the maneuver by spinning and smashing the white, male deputy under the ear with the barrel and slide of the semi-auto, dropping him like a sack of bricks. And came on around and did the same, after stiff fingering her in the solar plexus, to the woman deputy across the back of the neck, with the same results.

Elapsed time? Four seconds, total, from the time he reached for the gun.

Shaking his head, he looked down at the two unconscious police officers, sighing heavily. This was a complication he didn't need.

But at least it had netted him some weapons and gear...

Sticking the automatic in his waistband, he bent at the knees and hoisted first the female over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and then grabbed the male by the waist belt, grunting as he straightened with the bigger one. Damn, but if he hadn't spent a hard life at hard labor and then military exercise and combat from an early age... he'd have to make two trips.

Dumping them both at the back of the patrol car, he relived them of keys, gun-belts, weapons, the male's aviator glasses, wallets and change, and radios, and locked them in the trunk of the car. _After_ checking the trunk for weapons, and relieving _it_ of a Benelli riot gun with a retractable stock, and an AR-10 patrol rifle and a gear bag with ammunition for both.

A minute and a half later, he had the other Benelli shotgun out of the dashboard clamps inside the vehicle, and the car radio disabled. A minute afterward, he was disappearing through the shadows down the nearest alleyway headed in toward the center of downtown.

Seven minutes after that, he'd spotted a likely candidate and had opened up and stolen a large vehicle of some kind labeled a 'Cadillac Escalade EXT' and was searching for a pay phone.

* * *

.


	13. Strange Attractors

**Chapter Twelve: Strange Attractors...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 5:45pm – _

Corporal Murphy nursed his cold beer, rationing it carefully. He smiled when the bartender came by and gave his glass a nod and himself an inquiring look, and shook his head. While the beer was good, even for American beer, and cold, it wouldn't do to get intoxicated.

This bar was a bit too rowdy, and had a bit too much of an edgy feeling to it for him want to relax too much.

The bartender surprised him. At first, the young man had given him a seriously skeptical look and asked him for ID, probably because of his age, and the fact that Audie had always looked a couple of years younger than he actually was. Which was annoying, but didn't usually irritate him too much. In this case, though, he couldn't help but reflect that it was ironic that you could be old enough to get killed fighting your country's wars, but apparently, too young to get served a simple beer at home.

Still, after Audie had merely sighed and glared at the bartender, the young man had taken a long hard look at the weary looking, stained, and hard eyed Corporal, shrugged, and served him without another word.

For the most part, he just sat on his stool with his Thompson across his lap and his carbine leaning next to him, and sipped his beer slowly, not interacting with anyone. He was content to just enjoy the fact of being in a bar and not being shot at for the moment. And more than content to just sit, watch, and be entertained by the amazingly wide variety of outfits that the various other bar patrons were sporting...

There were a variety of people wearing soldier style outfits of various eras, including some, he supposed, that were supposed to be American uniforms of various types. But none, or at least very few were people he pegged as being actual _soldiers_.

Oh well. He'd figured out the situation in short order anyway, not long after entering, and he wasn't offended by any of the misguided attempts at American uniforms. The other countries represented could look out for their own interests.

"Hey there, Soldier," a soft and cheerfully sultry voice said from next to him. Damn. He'd been woolgathering and they'd done slipped up on him. "Don't mind me," the voice said as he turned toward it, "I'm just pushing through for a drink."

"Oh, I don't mind at all, ma'am," Murphy said, inspecting the voice's owner carefully. "Feel free to push by me any time."

"Well, thanks, I will," she said. She caught the bartender's attention, and turned to lean on the bar while she waited, giving him her own appraisal.

And, damn. What a sight for war wearied eyes.

The owner of the voice was a girl of about seventeen or so, sweetly curved, with laughing dark eyes and with long straight black hair. She was around five eight or so, which would put her a few inches above Murphy's height if he'd been standing. The dark eyes complemented and matched silky smooth skin the exact shade of coffee with just a dash of cream. She was one of the ones dressed in a pseudo military style: wearing a body hugging dress of some sort of tiger striped camouflage cloth, cut low enough at the top to display an enticing curve of cleavage without being either obvious or trashy, and short enough and slit high enough at the bottom to display a lot of nice leg without, again, being trashy about it. An olive green lightweight helmet topped off one end, and camo patterned knee length boots with medium high heels capped off the other.

She had a pistol of some sort in a holster banded to her right thigh, and criss-crossing belts of rifle ammo going across her chest to anchor on her belt. Another belt of cartridges looped around her waist, with one more angling lower on her hips. He couldn't tell the caliber, but, then, he wasn't really paying that much attention to the _ammo _by that point.

She apparently caught his appraisal of her and her outfit as well, and wasn't offended, for she snapped a smart salute to the helmet brim and said, "Major Cutie, reporting for duty, sir."

"So I see." Murphy smiled to show his appreciation, and said, "Don't call me sir, I work for a living. Well, it's not quite regulation, but since it complements the wearer so prettily, I guess the USCMJ will let it slide this once."

"Really? You think so?" the girl's eyes widened slightly, and she said, "Well, good." She held her wrists out crossed in front of her, and added, "'Cause I'd _hate_ to have you have to haul me off to the stockade in chains, Sergeant."

Murphy laughed, shaking his head. "Corporal. And no, not me. But you might watch out for any MPs that come in."

The bartender brought her drink, some sort of pink fruity thing with lots of pulverized ice in it, and Murphy slid a sawbuck to him, waving off the change.

"Thanks," the girl said, picking up her drink.

Murphy tipped his head to the 'Two Fifty Drinks for Ladies All Night!' sign and said, "I think two fifty for a drink for a pretty girl won't cause me to go bankrupt, ma'am."

The bright white smile broadened and her eyes danced at him. "My, what a silver tongue you have. Hah – now I'm almost sad that you won't have to haul me off to the hoosegow. Might have been fun."

"Stockade, ma'am," Murphy said, laughing. "The hoosegow is civilian."

"Ah. Ok, I'll remember that," she said. "My name is Tamara St. Marins, Tam for short," she stuck out her hand. "I've seen you around, but I don't think we were introduced."

"Murphy, ma'am," he said, taking her hand, his own smile broadening a bit. Nice grip, especially for a girl. She took your hand, looked you in the eye and shook it firmly like a man would. But no man had hands as nicely soft as that. No man worth knowing, anyway...

For a lot of his countrymen, and especially those from his neck of the woods, the girl's color might have been a put off. All Murphy had to say on that was that if any of _those_ types were ever pinned down under machine gun fire, he hoped they had no one but a pair of sharp eyed negro marine riflemen to keep the enemy's heads down and pull their asses out of the sling. Murphy might be a rural Texan, but he lacked any especial prejudice based on a person's skin.

And _anyone_ who would sneer at or deride a girl this sweet because there was more than a touch of the tar brush there, deserved to be bull-whipped, not just horsewhipped.

"So, is there a first name there? Or are you a one name kinda guy? Like Prince," Tam said.

"Yes, and it's Corporal, ma'am," Murphy said, grinning. "But friends can call me Murphy."

"Oh, I'm so glad," she said, laughing. She cocked her head, giving him an intent and curious look. Murphy flagged the bartender and pointed at his empty beer, deciding on another after all. "Let's see... don't tell me." She snapped her fingers, and said, "Jonathan. Jonathan, uh, Levinson? Cordelia pointed you out once, at the Cultural Ball."

Murphy shook his head. "No ma'am. Murphy," he insisted. "Audie."

Tam smiled at him, shaking her head. "Well, I can't fault your ability to stay in character, that's for sure. And, wow – _serious_ props for the authenticity there," she waved her hand at his uniform and battle gear. "You must have worked really hard on all that."

"Naw," Murphy said, honestly. He shrugged. "They just gave it to me as a consolation prize for enlisting, ma'am."

Tamara laughed, shaking her head. She took a sip of her drink. "Ok, be that way. And again, major props for being so in character."

Not knowing quite what to say to that, Murphy just shrugged and smiled back, sipping at his beer. "Character, ma'am?" he decided on, finally, giving her a curious look.

"Halloween? It's Halloween night, and you're almost a shoe-in to be at least a runner up for best costume," she said, cocking her head again, "Junior and Senior Annual party and contest."

"Ah." Murphy waved around the bar. "I figured out it was a masquerade ball of some sort. I didn't know it was Halloween." The comment gave him some disorientation. It had been near the end of January when he'd abruptly shown up here, he'd thought...

Tam shrugged, the gesture doing wonderfully enticing things to the bit of cleavage showing. "I could have sworn Jonathan had brown eyes, not blue."

"Maybe he does, but mine have always been blue, ma'am," Murphy said. Hrmm. He'd availed himself of the facilities when he'd first come in, but he hadn't even noticed the mirror. He'd been a bit too shell shocked and disoriented... maybe this Jonathan kid, whoever he was, bore one of those strange resemblances to him you sometimes saw in widely separate people? And the mirror behind the bar didn't extend this far up...

"Would you like to dance?"

The question caught Murphy by surprise, even though he'd been toying with the idea of asking _her_ the same one. Murphy opened his mouth, then sighed. A dance would be a wonderful opportunity to steal a kiss, but... "I'd say yes, but I don't think I _can_ dance to this. Maybe if they play a jitterbug or a waltz or something later?"

Tam laughed again, nodding. "Gotta love a man in uniform who can so determinedly stay in persona. Probably not a waltz, but I'm sure they'll play a slow dance here in bit. I'll hold you to that."

She looked across the bar to a table where a bunch of girls in feline costumes and several boys were sitting, and said, "Cordelia's probably going to razz me mercilessly for standing here talking to you for so long, when I was just coming up for a drink."

"I, ah, don't want to get you in trouble with your friends, ma'am," Murphy said, frowning slightly. He also didn't want to give up the first pretty girl he'd talked to in over a year that wasn't wearing a nurse's uniform. "Maybe if we went over and joined them?"

"Naw," Tam said, waving it off. "We're friends, not married. Cordelia doesn't own me, even if she likes to _act_ like she owns the Cordettes."

"Hmm. I thought we fought a war to make people give that up," Murphy said. It was evidently a right thing to say, because Tam beamed that brilliant grin at him again.

"Exactly!"

"Cordettes," Murphy said, flailing to try to put that in some sort of context. "So you're with one of the USO Tours?"

Tam laughed again, and said, "Something like that. And I never realized you had such a flair for acting. You should go for the drama club next semester."

"Oh no, not me," Murphy said, "I have a serious handicap when it comes to acting: a complete lack of talent."

Despite his distraction, Murphy did note when the _other_ soldier came in through the front door, looked around carefully and circumspectly, and headed around and over to the other bar at the right hand side of the building. They caught each other's eye for a moment, and exchanged quiet nods, and then moved on, each going back to his own appraisal of the place and the patrons. Or, in Murphy's case, his fascination with the dark eyed beauty he was talking to.

_Obviously_ a soldier from both his bearing, and his wary appraisal, first of the area for threats, and then a quick, careful glance toward all of the exits, fixing them in his mind. He moved like a soldier, too. Even if the other man was wearing an oddball collection of parts and pieces of clothing and gear that in no way resembled an actual uniform... and he had a weapon on a sling under the long olive drab coat. Something heavy, Murphy noted, from the way the fabric draped round it as he moved.

"Aha! Slow dance," Tam said, as the music started to change. "Come on," she grabbed his hand and pulled a laughing Murphy off of his stool, wiping thoughts of the other soldier from his head.

He bent and grabbed his carbine, slinging it over a shoulder opposite the Thompson, and said, "I'm all yours, ma'am."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Downtown Sunnydale near East Lemon and 5th Street, Evening 5:55pm – _

Detective Paul Stein gave the pair of Sunnydale County Sheriff's Deputies an amused look, not bothering to hide it. The female Hispanic deputy flushed, as did her partner.

"So basically," his partner, Detective John Lundy said, "A seventeen year old kid disarmed you, knocked both of you cold, and locked you in the trunk of your car. And _then_ took all of your weapons and radios and money."

The slender black detective looked just as amused as Stein, and he wasn't bothering to hide it either.

Well, given how much flak the Sheriff's Department gave Sunnydale PD for incompetence, it was nice to see the tables turned for a change, even if no police office really liked seeing another cop come up on the short end of the stick. Besides, considering neither was dead nor seriously injured, no real harm done in razzing them for it.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up," the white male deputy said, sourly. He winced as one of the EMTs probed the bruise under his ear, and applied a disinfectant coated pad to it to clean the small cut. "Swear to God, never saw anyone move that fast. My partner was going up to cuff him, and I was covering him, and then all of a sudden... a blur, and pow!"

"You happen to get a description, by any chance?" Stein said, trying not to laugh. It really wasn't funny, having a teenager running around with the kind of firepower an SCSD cruiser and patrol pair carried. Except for where it was.

He just hoped they could run across whoever it was before the kid did something even more stupid and dangerous and someone got really hurt.

"Yeah." The female deputy, Martinez, rattled it off. "The couple inside the thrift store has a better one they gave to your officers, they apparently know the kid."

"Oh?" Lundy said, perking up.

"Yeah, some local high school kid named Harris," the male said. "Something weird, Harris."

"Xander Harris?" Paul asked, his interest sharpening.

"Yeah, that's it," the male deputy looked up sharply at him. "You know him?"

"Know of, mostly. He's had a few brushes with us, along with his friends. All kids stuff: shooting BB-guns, fireworks out of season, occasional accidental vandalism... truancy. Not a bad kid, as far as I'm aware."

"Well, that's apparently changed," Deputy Martinez said.

Lundy's cell went off, and he stepped back to answer it. After a minute, he looked up, closing the phone with his expression grim. "Gotta go," he said. "Major altercation at the Fish Tank. Multiple shots fired, multiple injured, multiple homicides."

"Crap."

"Hope it's not our guy," Martinez said, her expression sick. _No_ cop liked the idea of their duty weapons being used on civilians. None of them.

"Initial description doesn't match. We'll see," Lundy said, shrugging.

"All right," Stein said. "Our officers will get us the details and the rest of the reports on this one from here. Looks like we got big game now."

"Hah hah," the male deputy said.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __1635 West Olive Avenue near Orange Street__, Sunnydale, Evening 5:__55__pm – _

The Series T-101L, Designation Larry Blaisdell, parked his new Lincoln Blackwood outside the place that he'd picked out of his internal database, after consulting a phone number repository at a small building designated a 'Convenience Store' several blocks from the Fish Tank.

'Wylie & Sons Firearms and Sporting Goods' was the proclamation on the sign, and in the lettering on the windows out front.

It didn't look very prepossessing. Nor did it look very busy or filled with customers, which suited the Terminator just fine. Leaving the sawed off Winchester 1886 under the passenger floorboard mat, he entered with the Desert Eagle tucked behind one hip.

"Yes sir, what can I do for you?" the heavy set man behind the firearms counter gave him a broad smile, and a short nod. His fellow clerk didn't even look up from the register as the Terminator went past.

Humans of this era didn't seem to be very wary or alert. A far cry from those of his time period...

Terminator Larry took his time perusing the racks behind the counter before answering. The counter man didn't seem to take it amiss. He merely shrugged and went back to the publication he'd been reading.

"I wish to examine the Franchi SPAS-12 twelve gauge assault shotgun," the Terminator said, finally. If the counter man took the expressionless monotone to be odd, he showed no indication of it.

"Sure. And may I say, you have fine taste in weapons, sir," the counter man said. "Of course, considering this is California, it's a Home Defense Shotgun now, not an 'assault weapon'. We don't _carry_ any assault weapons, heh heh," the man added, winking. He turned and took down the firearm, handing it over the counter.

Terminator Larry examined it expertly and professionally. It would do. "Also the Heckler & Koch long barrel MP-5."

"Well," the man said, turning to retrieve the indicated weapon, "It's the Hk-94 10 semi-auto, actually, with a 1.5x scope and a laser sight. We don't carry any Class II weapons here. However," he said, smiling, "We do have pre-ban magazines for this."

"Excellent," the Terminator said. "I also wish the Uzi ten millimeter, with magazines. The Para-Ordnance Long Slide ten millimeter with Red-dot sight and laser sight," he pointed into the handgun case, "The Whildey .45 Winchester Magnum. And the Kimber Stainless Target in ten millimeter."

"Wow. You certainly have good taste in firearms," the counter man said, laying the various weapons out. "And expensive tastes."

"I also wish magazines and ammunition for all of these," the Terminator stated. "And five hundred rounds of .44 Magnum and .45-70 Government, each."

"Sure. You'll have to settle for one hundred of the .45-70: that's all we have in stock. Uh, you do know that there's a waiting period on handguns in the State of California, right?"

"That will not be an issue," Terminator Larry said, smoothly drawing the Desert Eagle from behind his hip.

"Holy shit!" came from the other man back at the cash register.

The sound of heavy caliber pistol fire sounded within the store, briefly, and then it became silent. The Terminator quickly and methodically located, retrieved, and assembled the needed ammunition and magazines, and loaded them into a nylon and leather gear bag from one of the displays.

Then he located a local phone directory for the town, and began to scan the "C" section, looking for the Chase residence.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:00pm – _

Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks was annoyed, mostly with himself.

He was, uh, having performance issues.

Not the kind that the phrase _usually_ brought to mind, but considering the circumstances and the stakes, just as debilitating. His first problem was that he had located, found, and identified his subject. His other problem was that at the moment, he wasn't sure exactly what to do about it. He pulled the little folder on its thong from under his shirt again, and checked the photos inside against the woman, uh, girl actually, across the crowded barroom from him.

Yup. Cordelia Desiree Chase. Several years younger than in either photo he had, but he recognized her immediately. Hell, he'd recognize that face with his eyes closed and in his dreams...

The simple expedient of a phone call from a pay phone booth had gotten him a connection to the Chase residence. His briefing had been extremely thorough, and had not only included a description and map of Sunnydale circa the late late nineties, but descriptions and phone numbers for people of interest as well. As well as descriptions of people to avoid. He had gotten a male voice, older, perhaps in his forties, who had paused and asked if he was one of Cordelia's schoolmates, and then informed him that most likely, she was at the Bronze with her date and friends if he wanted to try to catch her there.

He had. The Bronze was less than fifteen minutes from his location at that point, driving. Sunnydale wasn't a terribly huge city.

Hicks considered himself – and Cordelia – fortunate that Terminators tended to be a lot less subtle and a lot more direct. Direct as in: less likely to call and ask, and more likely to go there in person and ask. Which would be a bit hard on Mr. and Mrs. Chase, but he didn't see any reasonable way that he could warn the man.

"Uh, sir? I have reason to believe that a large, human looking killer robot from the future is going to pay you a visit, torture information from you, and then kill you. Run. Run like hell, now."

And while you're at it, do you have Prince Albert in the can? You do? Better let him out before he suffocates.

Sucked, but short of putting Cordelia at further risk by going personally and trying to intercept the Terminator there, and risking him finding a direct way to Cordelia by a different method, he didn't see any way to protect them. All he could do was hope that his adversary did find a different means of tracking its quarry, and left the Chase family alone entirely.

Slim chance. Terminators were as logical as they were remorseless. Warning Chase not to tell anyone the same information over the phone wouldn't help, either. It would just cause the Terminator to go there and extract it in person. Hicks sighed and put the resulting mental images from his mind, and made an internal vow to never tell Cordelia he'd known it might happen.

Only problem was, Hicks now faced the same problem.

How to approach Cordelia. He had the feeling that going up to her and her group of friends and dates and saying "There's a murderous implacable cyborg on its way to kill you, please come with me if you want to live," wasn't going to get good results. Most likely, it would get him laughed at, or have the bouncers called to escort him away. Or the cops. Uh, bars of this era _did_ have bouncers, right?

He supposed that he could just walk up and ask her to dance, but he had the feeling that her date in the fedora and bomber jacket might object, and Hicks didn't think that decking him would endear him to Cordelia. Even if it _would_ please Hicks to smear that pasty grin all over the face of the guy who had his hands all over Cordelia... Hicks also didn't think he could dance to this kind of music. Or any kind of music, for that matter. He'd never had much practice.

There wasn't much dancing where he was from.

Cordelia looked, wow. Lovely was the only word he could think of, and it wasn't adequate. He had been informed that it was Halloween, but he hadn't quite grasped what that meant. And he hadn't expected his subject to be wearing a skin tight bit of velvety fake tiger skin and black leather that clung to every curve like a coat of paint, and was slashed all over to reveal enticing and mouth watering slices of tanned skin. He'd kind of expected an equally clingy but not nearly as revealing generic leopard skin outfit of some sort, as his briefing had described...

The other girls at the table were dressed in either skimpier, or equally tight and revealing cat costumes, but Hicks barely even noticed.

Not that he was sitting here at the bar _staring_ at her. _Not_ drooling. Hicks gave Cordelia the occasional glance in passing, but the rest of the time he split almost one hundred percent of his attention between watching the entrances and exits, and scanning the room for threats in the unlikely event that he'd missed the Terminator's entrance. Ok, maybe ninety percent of his attention.

He did mention 'mouth watering slices', right? Girls where he was from didn't look like that. Girls where he was from looked like soldiers.

Even, or _including_ the older version of his subject...

While scanning and watching, he racked his brain, dithered and tried to figure a way to approach her, all the while hoping he didn't dither so long that the Terminator showed up and made it a moot issue.

At least he wasn't nude any more. Or naked, either. (The two had different connotations to professional soldiers)

The interlude with the two deputies had netted him a Smith & Wesson 1006 stainless steel semi-automatic pistol in 10mm Auto, a 5" barreled Smith & Wesson Model 610 revolver in the same caliber, a pair of 12 gauge Benelli shotguns, one a semi-auto with a retractable stock, and the other a fixed stock dual pump action/semi-auto. And an Armalite AR-10 style semi-auto patrol rifle in 7.62x51mm Nato with an Aimpoint sight, mounted flashlight, and laser sight. It had also gotten him a pair of small backup pistols in ankle holsters that he'd discarded as being useless against his quarry.

He currently had the retractable stocked Benelli on a strap slung under his coat, and both handguns in his waistband. The shotgun was loaded with eight 12 gauge Brenneke slugs in the magazine and one in the chamber. The other two long arms were in the SUV – slash – pickup thing, hidden under floor mats.

Now if he could just figure out how to go about approaching his subject... not for the first time, Hicks really wished he was one of those troopers who were real ladies men. It'd come in handy, he had to admit.

Oh well. Wish in one hand, crap in the other... Hicks had a pretty good idea which would come true when he squeezed.

He wondered if the other agent, whoever he or she was, had made it back. And if _they_ were having as many problems approaching the secondary subject, Alexander 'Xander' Harris, as Hicks was with _his_.

* * *

_Tuesday, October 28, 1997: Windjammer's Sports Bar, UCS Drive near Abrams, Sunnydale, Evening 6:10pm -_

"All right, me hearties," Captain Ezekiel Hook said, "Listen up. We've got our orders. Admiral Landlorn and Captain Jack want a full roster of new crew and captives on board _before_ we set sail at Midnight on our eternal cruise. It's six hours it is 'til then, but that doesn't mean we have time to shilly shally around at it."

The crew nodded. Saucy Morgan shot him a resentful look, half falling out of her bodice's stretched and broken laces, but didn't say anything. Nor did she make a move to draw her hanger and run him through – which was all to the good.

He'd truly hate to have to have to chastise her in any permanent fashion. Hell's bells: as good as she was at sportin', once she got past her shyness and got into the swing of things, he might have to make her his permanent bunk mate.

Irregardless of her feelings on the matter. Senior Captain's prerogatives, after all.

Hook resisted an impulse to take her again, right there, and turned to the rest of his crew. "Now," he looked at his four teams. All four Captains under him sharpened up, grinning evilly. "Captains Starling, Longsword, Darkheart, and Wilde."

The former Sunnydale jocks, Percy West, Cameron Walker, Hogan Martin, and Darrin Masterson, gave him their full attentions. "Starling? Your crew is with me and mine, and me First Mate here," as he said that, Lady Joy glared at the cocky and boisterous Captain Starling, and Hook continued, "We're heading north deeper into the township. And it's no guff ye'll be givin' Joy here, ye hear? Ye'll treat her orders as though they came from me own lips: because they have." He looked at the other three, and said, "Longsword, ye'll take yours west toward the warehousing and crafts sectors before swinging up into town. Darkheart, your crew will head north and then west into town and pillage. And I want ye, Captain Wilde, to take yer men – and ladies," there were nasty chuckles from the feminine members of Wilde's cutthroats, "Down into yon University and see what ye can scour up."

Those men, and their seconds in command, nodded, turning to their crews to give their own orders.

"Whattabout me, Cap'n?" Barnacle Bill Youngley said.

"You: I'll be wantin' you to head to the docks over in yon harbour, and deliver what we've got so far to the Bloodfin." Ezekiel Hook had delegated Bill along with four regular crewmen and several of the less bloodthirsty women as prisoner and recruit detail.

Bill Youngley nodded and grinned at him, exposing a mouthful of stained and broken teeth. "Can do, Cap'n." He nodded to his team, and the women began cuffing and prodding the assorted women – and a few men – into a ragged line.

There were over two dozen and a half of them: all of the serving wenches from the Windjammer, and a goodly number of the female patrons. As well, they had a half a dozen male sailors to be press ganged for the Bloodfin. The female brigand staff members had joined in willingly, but they still went back to the Bloodfin, first. No trusting of new meat until they'd been properly inducted... A goodly numbered lot, but he had no doubts that Bill and his people could deal with any issues.

Permanently, if needs be. None of the captives, men or women, had pistols or hangars.

"Now, there's some comely wenches in the lot, so feel free to stop for sportin' if you wish to relieve the needs of yourself and yer men... but don't dally. I'll be wantin' ye at the next rendezvous to take back new batches when we meet up."

Youngley nodded and gave one of the male prisoners a shove, yelling, "Ye heard the Cap'n, move out!"

"Rest of yas, don't forget: we rendezvous at yon clock tower in two hours time to exchange reports and transfer prisoners and booty. _Don't_ be late – I'll be havin' new orders for ye by then. Now, let's move out."

And hell, Saucy Morgan and Pirate Elise were in _his_ group, for just in case _he_ felt a need for any further relief. Life was good when ye were a proper pirate. _Especially_ when ye were the Senior Captain.

* * *

.


	14. Endings, Transitions, and Beginnings

**Chapter Thirteen: Endings, Transitions, and Beginnings...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Sheffield Drive near Dahlia Street, Sunnydale, Evening – _

"Wow. Holy fuck." Aura said again, looking at him wide eyed and with a shocked, nearly awed expression. She shook her head, and then practically shook herself all over, like a wet cat, and glared at him. Wow. Fast recovery, Daniel thought to himself...

Danny started to answer, and managed a bare croak. He finally gasped out, "Give me a minute," and waved a hand weakly.

"Ok, so, what the _Hell_ is going _on_?" Aura said, "And where the _Hell_ did you learn how to _do_ that, McNally?" She looked around wildly, and said, "Wait, _Willow_? And... and, Buffy _Summers_? Ok, and what the heck _was_ that thing?"

"Victor Creed, known as Sabretooth," Danny said, straightening up finally. He'd managed to recover a little of his spent strength and energy, anyway. But that fight, coupled with drawing on the power of the Iron Fist, had been draining – gods! "A professional assassin, killer, and mercenary."

"And I take it dat you and he do not like each other very much," the dark girl said, getting to her feet and walking over to them, a bit unsteadily.

"Oh my god, you're hurt," Aura and the girl in the blue and gold Princess gown said, almost simultaneously. The mocha skinned girl waved it off, one forearm wrapped around her midsection.

She was moving carefully, but she didn't look gutted, thank the Celestial Dragon.

"You might say that," Danny Rand said. "He killed my parents, a long time ago. And we've fought several times since. Usually to the death on his part."

"He is a demon?"

"No, a mutant," Danny said. "But demon would sure explain a lot."

The girl nodded and said, "I am Kendra, de vampire Slayer. And you are?"

"Daniel Rand," Danny said at the same time that Aura said, "Jesse McNally." They glared at each other, and Danny turned to the other girl and said, "_Daniel Rand_, known as Iron Fist. Of Heroes for Hire."

"No he isn't. He's Jesse _McNally_. He just _thinks_ he's this Daniel Rand person," Aura said.

"I do not!" Danny said, and then paused. Jeeze. They were starting to sound like a pair of grade school kids in some television teen drama. Aura glared at him, folding her arms across her chest.

The insubstantial girl in the gauzy and tattered white dress, the one that Creed had struck _through_ without touching her, just watched the whole thing curiously, her head cocked to one side.

"There seems to be some confusion here," the girl in the Princess gown said. "Perhaps he might be both? Under some vile enchantment of sorts?"

Danny opened his mouth, as did Aura, and then they both paused, apparently struck by the same thought. What if.. ? Well, Danny _wasn't_, but perhaps this Aura girl was enchanted to where she _thought_ he was her supposedly dead friend Jesse?

"I swear," Danny said, spreading his hands and doing his best to look earnest and truthful, "I'm not lying, deluded, or under some spell. My name is Daniel Rand, late of K'un-L'un, and just before all of this, I was sitting in our offices in New York city reading a magazine. And then I was here, wherever here is. Uh... " he looked at the girls, and asked, "You _do_ have a New York here, right?"

"Yes," Aura said, rolling her eyes, "And we even have a Cleveland. And you're in _Sunnydale_, Jesse. Sunnydale, _California_, where you _vanished_ from a year ago?"

"That's uh, good," Danny said. Obviously, Aura wasn't going to let this go...

"Actually, de spell explanation may be de correct one," Kendra said. "I was sent here to prevent a dark power from rising. I failed. And after de wave of magical energy passed through, everything changed, and de fellow of these two I was following," she waved at the Willow girl and the Princess, "Was captured in a glowing ball of blue-white light and vanished. And den _you_," she pointed at Danny, "Appeared in his place a few minutes later, so I followed you when you ran to _her_ screams."

"I'm glad you did, thanks," Danny said. Aura echoed him, giving the girl a grateful look, completely unlike the glares she kept sending at _him_.

"De Slayer protects," Kendra said, with a one armed shrug, "And battles evil. It is what we do. What we exist for." She sheathed her short sword under her light coat. "And demon or mutant or whatever he was, dat man was evil." She gave Danny an even look, and added, "And you were obviously not."

"How bad are you hurt," Aura said, looking at the blood seeping past the girl's arm.

"It sliced through de skin and very outer layer of muscle, but no deeper. I will recover," Kendra said.

"We need to get off the streets, and to somewhere safe where we can dress that injury, and clean and disinfect yours," Danny said, looking at Kendra and then Aura. "I don't even want to think about what Sabretooth has on his claws, or that werewolf thing, either."

"Ewww." Aura looked vaguely ill at that, and shivered. "Well... my car is broken now, probably. And we _so_ can't go to my house – my parents would _freak_." She looked at the other two girls, and said, "We maybe could go to Buffy's... but I don't know where she lives?"

The Princess looked back at her blankly. "I am not certain as to why you are looking at me. I am not this... Buffy person."

"Well, yeah, except for the part where you kinda _are_."

"I am _not_!" the Princess stamped her foot, looking determined. "I am Princess Cinderella of the Kingdom of Buffonia, and the township of Sun Vale. Well, not actually a princess _yet_, but my faerie godmother _assures_ me that if I make it to the Ball, I _will_ be once I meet the Prince and win his heart."

She saw that they were all looking at her with variations of bemused expressions, huffed irritably, and folded her arms across her chest, looking away with her chin lifted.

"Uh huh," Aura said. "Prince Charming, right?" Danny did his level best to suppress a laugh. He didn't think it would help.

"Why," Princess Cinderella looked at her, startled, and said, "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Aura said, rolling her eyes.

"Even I have heard that legend," Kendra said. "My Watcher used to read it to me when I was little."

The Princess sniffed and turned her head away again, stiffening in outrage.

"Oh-kay... " Aura said, apparently doing her best to stifle a grin, but her lips were twitching at the corners. Danny just had to like her spirit, and her resiliency, even if he _didn't_ like or appreciate her obstinacy about this Jesse thing. "Ok. So... Oh! I know: I overheard Willow saying earlier her parents were going to be out of town all weekend. And I so _do_ know where Willow lives!"

"Hating to echo the Princess as much as I may, I must ask," the Willow girl said, "Why ever are you looking at me?"

"I was talking about _your_ house, _Willow_," Aura said.

"Well, you could go there, however, it may not do you much good," Willow said. "My parents are no doubt long since dead or moved away from here, following my death."

Aura blinked at that, but just said, "Noo... _your_ parents live about six blocks from Xander, and eight blocks from Buffy's house, where ever _it_ is. And across town from here."

"They do not. They lived on Shooter's Hill, but– Have it your way. I truly believe, however, that you'll be disappointed," Willow said. "Unless you believe that a decades abandoned home will suffice."

"Oy!" Aura threw her hands up.

"Wait," Kendra cut across the impending argument and said, "You said across town? How far away?"

"Oh, that way about a mile and a half," Aura waved vaguely north by north westerly, "To two miles. Sunnydale is long east and west, but it's not really wide north and south. So about a half hour to forty minute walk."

Kendra nodded. "It will do. De sooner you are safe, de sooner I can find de Watcher here and be about my Mission."

"I thought you said you failed in that?" Danny said, curious.

Kendra shrugged, her expression closing off abruptly. "I did. But it may be dat the effect can be ended or reversed if I can find de source and de sorcerer and end him."

"I'm in," Danny said.

"De Slayer works alone," Kendra said, her voice a bit cold. "Except for her Watcher."

"I _didn't_ say my being in was optional," Danny said, smiling.

Kendra glared at him, and then shrugged, and said, "You are an excellent warrior, it is true, but I am trained for this. We will discuss it."

"Ok. So," Danny looked at the others, and said, "You said you were dead? Uh, who is it that you believe you are?"

The Willow girl blinked at him, and shrugged. "I am Lady Willow of the Cliffs. Tonight is one of the few nights that I can manifest," she said. Looking around herself, she added, "I normally manifest around the Bluffs. I am not certain why that has changed."

Aura started, suddenly staring hard at the other girl.

"Let's get going before something _else_ attacks us," Danny said, "Or Creed recovers and comes back for round two."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:20pm – _

Feeling exhilarated and slightly winded, Corporal Murphy led Tam back to the bar by the hand. They'd played two slower dance tunes (of whatever kind of music this was) that were more or less suitable to waltz to, and then a faster one that actually had a beat suitable for a jitterbug.

Murphy had been pleasantly surprised to find that the dark skinned girl had not only known the dance, but she was good at it. At one point, a number of the other dancers had even cleared a small space for them, and taken to weaving in place and clapping rhythm...

He'd even managed to steal that kiss at one point during the faster dance, when he'd whirled Tam in and dipped her. Her eyes had gone wide for a moment, and then half closed and she smiled under his lips. They broke apart, laughing, as he straightened and whirled her away again.

She hadn't seemed offended, either.

"Pshew," Tam said. "Man, Cordelia never said you were such a good dancer."

Murphy shrugged, neither having nor wanting to fake an answer to that. Let the girl think what she wanted, as long as they were enjoying themselves. He could sort out the whole Jonathan issue, and let her know he really was who he said he was and had no idea how or why he'd appeared here, later. When there was a decent chance...

_Before_ they did more than share a stolen kiss, if things went that way. Corporal Murphy wasn't the kind of guy to lead a girl on under false colors. He wanted to be sure she knew what the score really _was_ if she was interested.

She seemed interested.

"So are you," he said.

"Life skill," Tam said, shrugging. "Daddy made sure I took ballroom dancing and all the other dance classes so I'd be a," she made hooking gestures with two fingers of each hand, "'A proper debutant' when I grew up."

"Well, it paid off, definitely," Murphy said.

Their former seats were taken, but a couple slid off of a pair of stools farther up the bar toward the cash register and headed off to the dance floor. Murphy and Tam slid neatly onto their stools almost as they'd vacated them.

"Well, thank you, kind sir," Tam said, grinning.

"Proper debutant?" Murphy said, raising his eyebrows. "Your dad must be... "

"Wealthy," Tam said. "And very socially well placed. He's the owner and chief exec of St. Marin's Petrochemical, Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Limited."

That hadn't been exactly what Murphy had been about to say, but... well, he wasn't sure what he'd been about, so forget it, anyway. He shrugged and looked impressed. "Wow. I'm in the presence of royalty."

"Nope," Tam said, shaking her head and smiling. "Just oil barons. Lesser nobility, not royalty."

"I sit corrected," Murphy said, smiling.

"Excuse me, miss," a male voice said from Tam's other side, and Murphy glanced over, as Tam did. "Allow me, please, to slide in to the bar past you, if you would."

"Oh, hey, Tor, sure," Tam said. She slid off her stool, and edged it closer to Murphy and hopped back onto it. Considering this placed her with her leg pressed up against Murphy's, he didn't mind the rearrangement at all.

"Well, my name isn't Tor," the young man said, "But a lady as lovely as yourself may certainly feel free to call me whatever you wish, within reason."

Murphy gave the man a curious and appraising look over, and his companion. Tor, or whoever he was, was around six one or so, dark blond with dark blue eyes, and dressed all in black in a western style. Black shirt, black hat with a silver concho band, black jeans, plain black square toed boots, and black leather vest. And a low slung black gunbelt with a tied down holster holding a long barreled target sighted single action pistol with ebony grips. There was a silver chess head emblem on the holster, a knight, if Murphy wasn't mistaken.

His companion was around five eight or so, with short blonde hair, and also wearing black. Black leather, sleeveless fringed dress that reached down to around her mid thigh, black silk shirt worn under the dress, tooled black and blacksnake skin boots, and a black leather vest. She also had a gunbelt, but a hip slung one with a high ride, cross draw holster instead of low slung and tied down, and there was a silver badge on her vest that said: United States Marshall, California Territory. When she turned slightly to scan the room, Murphy saw that she also had a large loop Winchester on a sling over her right shoulder. He approved.

Both of them looked dangerous, and deadly. Just something about the way they moved and held themselves, the unconscious awareness of their surroundings, and a look about the eyes that suggested that both of them had seen the elephant, and hadn't flinched.

"Oh? And if you're not a Tor Hauer, who might you be?" Tam said, smiling.

"I might be a Paladin, Miss," the man said, smiling. "In fact, I am. Paladin, at your service." He took a plain white card out of his shirt pocket, and handed it to her.

Tam examined it curiously, Murphy leaning in a bit to do the same. It read: 'Have Gun, Will Travel – Wire Paladin, San Francisco' with a black chess head emblem of a knight.

"And, no, the first name isn't 'Wire'," the man said. "There's only the one."

Tam laughed, tucking the card away. "I'll remember that. I'm Tam, then, and this is... "

"Murphy," Murphy said. "Sir, ma'am."

The girl Marshall nodded, and said, "Sarah Cahill, US Marshall. Pleased."

Paladin, or Tor, whomever excused himself and slid into the space Tam had opened up, signaling the bartender for drinks. Getting served, he turned and handed one of them to his companion as a female voice said, "And there you are. I was starting to wonder if the goblins got you."

Murphy looked up to see one of the girls in cat outfits from the table Tam had indicated her friends were at, standing back a little bit from Paladin and Cahill, looking them all up and down skeptically.

"Hey, Tor, Heidi, and... "

Tam put up a hand, smiling, and said, "Already did this one. It's Paladin, Cahill, and Corporal Murphy," and she gestured to the other girl, "And this is my friend Cordelia Chase." She leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial tone, "They're all _deeply_ in character. Not to be broken for _anyone_."

The dark haired girl in the tiger skin and black leather body suit blinked, and shook her head slightly. "Oh-kay... obviously some role playing thing I _don't_ want to know anything about. Good costumes, though."

Tam laughed, and looked at her curiously. "Making your own bar run? I thought you had Owen to fetch that drink and tote that bale for you tonight?"

"Oh, please," Cordelia said, gesturing back toward their table with a dismissive wave of the hand. "I so do, but if I have to hear _one_ more thing about Emily Dickie's son or Poe for awhile, I'm going to grab Indiana Owen's pistol and shoot _him_, and then myself. _Had_ to get away. Besides, I wanted to see what had _you_ so fascinated," she said.

The couple on the other side of Tam vacated their seats for the dance floor, allowing Cordelia to slide in and up to the bar. "Oh," Tam said, "Found someone to talk to and dance with."

"I see that," Cordelia said, turning to face her after placing an order. She shrugged, "Well, I'm not going to say anything, given my luck in dates tonight," and looked at Murphy, saying, "_Great_ costume, really. _So_ hard to get that authentic look off the rack. And I _love_ the blue contacts... _so_ nice to see you taking a step up the social ladder, Jonno. I'd say good luck in the contest, but _I_ so plan on winning it, so, like, not."

"Ah... " Murphy said, blinking.

"I see Aura's still a no show?" Tam said.

"Yep. _No_ idea what happened to her. _Never_ would have expected her to pull a no show with _Blayne_ of all people," Cordelia said. "And is it just me? Or does it feel like this place is one spark away from an explosion or something? Jeeze. Even Xander's been sitting over there ever since he came in just watching everything like he's expecting WWII to break out any moment, gods."

"It is a bit tense, Miss," Murphy said. Tam and Paladin nodded agreement.

"It so is, isn't it? Well, if we _do_ get World War II, at least we have the marines on hand, even if it _is_ a _small_ detachment," Cordelia said, looking at Murphy. She shook her head. "Well, ta." Cordelia took her drink and prowled off.

Murphy watched her go, bemused and completely nonplussed. Tam looked at his expression and laughed. "And _that_ is the Cordelia Chase experience. She's actually really nice, well... not. But she is cool. And a good person if you manage to dig past all the surface meanness."

"Ah." Murphy said, nodding. "I think I either like her, or I don't."

"A lot of people have that reaction."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Rendoval Road__, Chase Estate, Sunnydale, Evening 6:25pm – _

"Is Cordelia Chase present," Terminator Larry said into the speaker grill inset next to the front doors of the Chase mansion.

The peephole occluded briefly, and the T-101L passed on the reflex to raise the pistol from behind his back and shoot through it, and then kick the door open.

No information would be forthcoming from a terminated human.

"Aren't you one of Cordelia's classmates? Larry something?" a voice with a Spanish accent said through the speaker.

"Yes." Terminator Larry waited.

After few moments, the door opened and a pretty and pleasant looking Hispanic woman in her early thirties opened the door, smiling at him. "Cordelia isn't here at the moment, please."

The T-101L brought the laser sighted 10mm up and around from behind his back, placing the muzzle between the young woman's eyes. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, the eyes suddenly becoming terrified.

"Where is she. Tell me and you will live."

"She's... oh, madre de dios, please don't kill me... " the T-101L pushed on her forehead with the muzzle of the handgun, stepping inside the foyer as she backed up, her eyes almost crossing as she looked at the slide of the big automatic.

"Tell me and live. Do not and be terminated."

"She's at the Bronze!" the woman said, "At a party with her friends! Please... "

"Thank you." Terminator Larry squeezed the trigger and the woman never finished the statement. He stepped over the twitching corpse and past the blood and gray matter splash on the wall behind, heading through the archway beyond and deeper into the large house.

He found Mr. Chase coming out of a den style room farther in, carrying a shotgun. Randall Chase stopped abruptly, not pausing to gape, and brought the shotgun around. Or tried to...

The Terminator was much faster. He raised the Para-ordnance and put a 10mm hollow point through the man's forehead.

He found Mrs. Chase inside the den beyond, crouching behind a sofa and frantically trying to get a signal on the handset of a portable phone, to no avail. The phone service in this area was out, and the T-101L had made certain that no signal would leave even if it came back up by disabling the phone lines to the estate.

Teresa Chase was dead, slack meat and falling, before the portable handset could hit the rug.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:30pm – _

The indicator on her cell phone read 'No Signal'. Like, zero bars, totally.

Well, of _course_ it did. Cordelia Chase scowled (only slightly, because scowling causes lines) and flipped the phone shut and slipped it in to her handbag. It couldn't _possibly_ work when she needed it to. Sighing, she pushed past a group of giggling girls in sexy cheerleader outfits, and out of the restrooms.

Outside in the bar again, she paused to look around. So not in the mood to go back to Owen yet. Enough Emily Dickinson. And Cordelia actually _liked_ Poe, or some of his stuff, but jeeze... If you're _going_ to talk and quote poetry to a girl on a date all night, the poetry _so_ should be all about _her_.

_And_ she'd finished her drink already. Nodding to herself, she turned and headed up along the east wall to the Bronze's right hand and main bar.

Well, crap. She'd forgotten that this was where Harris had staked out a place to sit and watch everything warily and brood. Oh well. Putting on her best and patented Cordelia Chase smile, she headed on anyway, stalking up to the empty spot at the bar near him.

Someone actually grabbed her ass as she went by. Cordelia gasped in outrage, spun, and slapped the whoever it was, hard.

The grinning pirate who'd done the deed grinned back at her with a mouthful of stained teeth, doffed his hat, and said, "My pardons, foine Missy." His companions, some male, and a few female, laughed uproariously as if it was the biggest joke in the _world_, sheesh.

"Keep your hands to yourself, buster," Cordelia said. "Or lose 'em."

"Aw, no need to be like that, Missy," the pirate drawled at her, still grinning.

"Oh, there so is, believe me," Cordelia said, turning to continue on her way. One of the other pirates actually grabbed her _wrist_ and spun her back around.

"Now now, it's a kiss we'll be having, for yer snooty attitude, Missy," the second pirate said, grinning and bending over to plant his, eww, _lips_ on hers.

Cordelia brought her knee up, sharply, and he gasped and staggered back away from her. "I _so_ don't _think_ so, asshole."

That got scowls, and dark sounding mutters and curses from the rest of the little brigand crew. The one that had first accosted her took a step forward. "Now, that wasn't very nice. We may just have to be taking more than a kiss from ye fer that."

"The lady _said_, she doesn't _think_ so," an icy cold voice said from behind Cordelia ear and slightly to her right. The muzzle and barrel of a huge shotgun appeared at the corner of her vision, pointed directly at the face of the speaking pirate. "I'd take her at her word." The voice turned suddenly amused, but stayed as cold. "Or comes it a loud noise or two."

Cordelia squeaked and recoiled back, bumping into a solid and reassuringly warm presence just behind her. A hand set itself between her shoulder blades, strong and oddly comforting. She'd _recognized_ that voice... even if she'd never heard it sounding quite like that.

The speaking pirate raised his hands, palm out, and backed away. So did the others, one of them pulling the still groaning and clutching his gonads brigand along with them.

The voice at her ear lowered and said, softly, "Back away now, slowly, with me." Cordelia nodded and did so, retreating until they got back to Xander's place at the bar. He slid back onto his stool once they got there, and Cordelia rounded on him, her eyes flashing and her mouth open for an angry comment.

Which she bit off before it ever came out. For one thing, Xander wasn't even looking at her. He was still watching the pirate group, his eyes narrowed.

For another, he probably _had_ just saved her from an ugly scene. Twice in one evening, jeeze. What was _up_ with this town tonight, anyway?

So instead, she nodded sharply at him, and simply said, "Thank you."

Xander turned a pair of cold blue eyes on her – wait, weren't his eyes brown? What was up with all the blue contacts tonight? – that immediately warmed and softened, and he gave her a smile completely unlike his usual lopsided one. "No problem, ma'am. Those guys have been harassing girls and their dates all night."

"Ma'am?" Cordelia raised an eyebrow, and then shook her head. "Well, still, thanks. That could have gotten ugly, and I _so_ don't like being groped or having _tongues_ shoved down my throat against my will, thank you." She pushed past him to the bar, signaling the waiter and tapping her foot impatiently.

"All right, then, you're welcome, ma'am," Xander said. "But still, no problem." He picked up what looked like a non-alcoholic beer, an O'Doul's, and sipped at it.

Cordelia ordered a virgin margarita, and turned to him while she waited for it. "Well, yeah, but that's twice now and I am so not liking us being uneven." She paused, and said, "And what _is_ it with this place tonight? It feels like a barroom brawl waiting to happen, not that I've ever _seen_ one of those except on TV. Not that didn't involve _vampires_, anyway."

"No idea, ma'am," Xander said with that calm courtesy that was _so_ getting irritating, looking blank at the vampires thing. "Does feel really tense, though, doesn't it?"

"It does," Cordelia said, accepting her drink and paying for it. Xander had started to reach for his pocket, but she was too fast for him, and he pulled his hand back and put his elbow back on the bar behind him. "Wait," she said, her eyes widening. "Is the world ending tonight? I so told Buffy to tell me if it was, but that's so like her to forget. And so _like_ you, jerk!" Cordelia slapped him on the arm, and drew back her hand, her eyebrows going up.

Ow. And, like, wow. When had _Xander_ gotten so hard in the biceps? I mean, she _knew_ that he had that job at that contracting supply place on summers, weekends, and sometimes after school, but jeeze. Oh, and the summer thing at the riding stables... huh. Now that she looked at him carefully, he not only wasn't _dressed_ exactly as he had been earlier, but he looked heavier and more _solid_, too. And so not in a _fat_ way... but like he'd suddenly put on about thirty pounds of beefcake in the chest and arms.

Yummy, a small traitorous voice in the back of her mind said. And, eww. She _so_ did _not_ just go '_yummy_' looking at Xander Harris of all people!

"Um... no? The world's not ending tonight that I know of," Xander said, looking a bit nonplussed. "Not if I can help it. And, no. Not _tonight_." He nodded firmly.

Cordelia nodded back, not finding the emphasis on 'tonight' all that reassuring. "Ok, good," she said. "And you: _tell_ me if it is. _Don't_ just leave me hanging in the dark. I don't _care_ if we hate each other or not."

"I will. And," Xander said, frowning at her. "I _don't_ hate you, Cordelia."

There was a sudden intensity in those eyes and that lowered voice that made Cordelia's mouth go dry, abruptly. She swallowed hard and took a sip of her drink. "Right. And I so believe that."

The band changed to a slow song, and Xander glanced over to the stage, then back at her. "Uh. Would you like to dance, maybe?"

"Well, normally I'd say yes," Cordelia said, smiling wickedly, "But since unlike you, _I'm_ trying to _preserve_ my upward social mobility, that would be a _no_. But thank you for playing, and please accept one of our gift coupons as a consolation prize."

Rather than the sharp and sarcastic rejoinder Cordelia had expected, and been anticipating, Xander just frowned slightly and gave her a hurt look before shrugging and looking away. And dammit, what right did he have to look hurt, anyway?

Ok, so he did save her life once, and maybe save her from a group groping tonight, and a punch in the face earlier, but still... it was a part of the game, dammit. They were _supposed_ to insult each other and _enjoy_ it, not get all hurt feelings. _He_ was supposed to make some sarcastic and half cutting, half teasing remark, and then they'd have an exchange of them, and gradually challenge and piss her off into agreeing, if he could.

Cordelia opened her mouth, but was saved from whatever had been going to come out by Owen's voice speaking from next to her and his hand on her elbow. "Hey! There you are," Owen said. "I was starting to wonder."

"Oh, you know me," Cordelia said. "Just doing the social mingle thing and trying to raise the social status of all I meet."

"Cool," Owen said, blinking. "Hey, Harris. You guys still do that weird thing with Buffy?"

"Uh, hey. And, uh," Xander shrugged, looking blank.

"C'mon," Owen said, blowing right past Xander's lame answer, "They're playing our song, let's go dance." He drew on Cordelia's arm, and started to pull her toward the sunken level and the dance floor.

"_We_ have a song?" Cordelia said. She shook her head, but let him draw her away. Nodding to Xander and throwing him a confused feeling smile, she followed Owen away from the bar and down the steps.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Second Avenue just past Imojin, Sunnydale, Evening 6:20pm – _

It had taken a bit longer to get everyone sorted out, fed, bath-roomed, and the squads reorganized than First Sergeant Benjy had planned, but they managed, finally. The first thing they'd done when she and Bucky had discussed her brain storm was take an inventory of all the surviving bags of candy and then divide it out in equal shares among everyone except for tiny Private Pooka. (Who had gotten a much, err, smaller share) And then she'd reorganized a bit so that every squad had someone with a weapon that had become a real firearm, and at least one other real weapon. They only had two witches, and they were already in Squads one and two, so she couldn't put magic in every squad. But when pressed, Private Princess Wicked had proven to have at least some slight magical ability, and she became Third Squad's magical backup. Better than nothing. And she'd taken Private Pooka Bell, Private Kitty Kat, and Private Devila – who'd manifested a really neat ability to just plain vanish for short periods of time – and broken them off into a scout squad.

So far, so good.

At least at first...

Unfortunately, they hadn't gotten much past the turn from Imojin Parkway onto Second, and a short ways down, when there had come a massive crashing and roaring, and a quintet of... things had come out of the wooded lot back of Imojin and charged toward them, snarling.

Try as she might, later, Benjy still had never been able to come up with a better description than _things_. It fit.

Whatever they had been, they weren't people any more, not even close. Two of them looked like some sort of mutant cross between a Sasquatch and a werewolf. One of them looked a bit like some horror director's reinterpretation of the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz, only with extra ick and shaggier matted hair, longer teeth, and nastier claws. Another looked like the warped love child of Scooby Doo and one of the werewolves from the Howling... Benjy wasn't even sure _how_ to describe the fifth.

Maybe if you took the tiger guy from the Thundercats, complete with orange fur and stripes, gave him shaggier fur and sabre teeth, red glowing eyes, and an, uh... standing thingy in front (just remembering it was enough to make Beverly blush furiously), you'd have an idea.

The next minute or so was and would probably always be a confused blur of screaming, roaring, shots, twanging bows, yelps and howls, and snarling motion.

First Sergeant Benjy found herself firing her wrist rocket as fast as she could manage, at anything taller than one of them while Private Pooka buzzed and dive bombed the group of marauders. Thank god she'd had the idea to hunt up as many smooth stones as possible during the break... One of them grabbed at and hooked Misty with a clawed hand – luckily only getting the huge sleeve of her Tokyo pop diva costume – and hurled her screaming and sprawling down the street. Private Kitty Kat had leapt out of a patch of shadow fully onto the back of one of them, one that had grabbed a screaming Private Admiral Mayhem; biting, clawing, snarling and spitting for all she was worth until it dropped Mayhem; and then leaping to the one moving in to finish off Misty and doing the same to it before it reached back a clawed paw/hand and grabbed and sent her flying to land on top of the still screaming Private Misty. Bucky whanged his shield off the face of another, catching it neatly out of the air on the return, as it pounced at Private Sergeant Cookie. The two pirates, their musketeer, and their swashbuckler, troopers, and gunfighters fired at anything more than five feet tall that was covered with hair. Cagney hosed down anything hairy that moved in _anyone's_ direction.

But it was the two witch girls, Private Devila, and Private Princess Wicked that saved all of their tails, Benjy figured later. Wicked smacked one of them in the face with her glowing scepter, resulting in a bright flash and then there was a kid sized monster thing squalling in its place. Wicked looked as surprised as it did... and the two witches and Devila held up their hands, palms out, and there was a flashbulb bright strobe of light, and the other four things fell back blinking, roaring, and waving their arms furiously in front of them.

First Sergeant Benjy grabbed all of her scattered wits and yelled "Retreat! Fall back! _Run!_" at the top of her lungs, and took her own orders, pausing to grab Private Kat and Private Misty each by an arm and haul them along with her. The rest of the Foragers platoon pelted along behind, some of them still screaming.

The one time she looked back, hastily, over her shoulder, she was _amazed_ to see that they hadn't lost anyone.

They were still running nearly flat out when they made it the five long, long blocks down Second to where it hit Eighth Street, and she almost ran headlong into a group of teenagers and young adults in costume coming up Eighth.

Probably from the UCS campus, she figured later. They all looked to be in their late late teens and early twenties, maybe.

There were over a dozen of them, seven guys and the rest women, and they were all wearing Pirate costumes, sailor outfits, barbarian costumes, or some variation. One even had a peaked hat, a long red coat, and a _hook_ on his left hand. Wow. They even had a cat girl of their own, in a slinky black vinyl looking outfit.

There were also a couple of girls, one in a skimpy red and white nurses outfit, and one in a barely there Playboy bunny thing of skimpy white top, bow tie, bunny ears, high black boots, black short shorts and suspenders that had less material than some bikinis that Bev had seen on the beach. And acres of tan skin with curves... _lots_ of curves. Beverly blushed and looked away, resisting an impulse to look down her uniform jumper and wonder if _she'd_ ever have that much bust.

If she hadn't looked away, she might have noticed the rope tied around the wrists of the red nurse girl and the blonde bunny girl, being held by two of the pirate wenches with swords, and the switching tail on the cat girl, and things might have gone different...

Oh well.

Beverly skidded to a halt, gasping for breath. If she hadn't been so winded, frightened, and disoriented, she might also have noticed that the costumes looked a bit too real to be costumes any more. Except for Bunny Girl and Nurse Girl's... she was and she didn't.

Beverly Sheridan, First Sergeant Benjy of the Sunnydale Irregulars, was terrified, and as close to a breakdown as she was likely to get for the entire rest of the night.

She looked up at the closest college kid, a male pirate dressed in black with a bushy beard, and babbled out, "Oh thank gods, mister. You've got to help us there's some _things _back there and they're trying to eat us and they're chasing us and we're trying to get back to the high school and... "

She ran down finally, mostly because she'd run out of breath. She bent over with her hands on her knees gasping, like about ninety percent of the people in her platoon.

"Arr, we'll help ya, lass," the pirate drawled out. The rest of his crew chuckled, a bit nastily. But Bev didn't notice that at first... "Whattya think, lads and lassies? Black Tom's been complaining that we're short o' midshipmen and cabin boys and locker girls."

Another one laughed harshly and said, "Yeah, Cap'n. And some of these should be lots o' fun when they grow up a mite."

Beverly – she didn't feel much like a First Sergeant Benjy at the moment – looked up, about to tell him that he wasn't funny and to quit joking. About that time, Private Dread Pirate Roberts said, sounding a bit puzzled and suspicious, "Hey! Why are these two girls tied up? And why doesn't _that_ one have any underwear?"

The leader of the pirate crew laughed and stepped forward and grabbed Beverly around the wrist right about the time that the Bunny Girl screamed, "Run, kids! These guys are awful!" and the nurse followed it up with, "and the women are worse!"

Another one grabbed Private Misty, one latched a hand onto Private Calamity's rifle arm, swinging her up and shaking her, and one grabbed Private Admiral Mayhem around the waist, lifting her off the ground kicking and screaming.

That might have been the end of the military career of First Sergeant Benjy of the Sunnydale Irregulars, except that tiny Private Pooka swooped down and yelled, "Let her go!" and kicked Cap'n Blackbeard right in the nose as hard as she could, with all the velocity of her swoop behind it. He dropped Beverly like a hot rock, and fell backward, yelling and cursing.

Private Kitty Kat hit the one holding Private Misty like a buzz saw, snarling and screaming. She saved Misty for the _second_ time in a short period of evening.

Bucky hit the one holding Admiral Mayhem in the face with his thrown shield, and nailed another in the shoulder with his forty-five. The pirate he'd hit with the shield unfortunately didn't drop Mayhem, but fell back with her, cursing.

And once again, things became a confused and blurry melee for a minute or so as guns fired on both sides, arrows flew, and Private Kitty and Private Devila savaged anything they got their teeth and claws into. Dread Pirate Roberts was grabbed, and then _dropped_ hastily as he fired his pistol into the side of the face of one of the sailor types...

Right about that time, the remaining four hairy things from earlier barreled into the party, and smashed into the group of pirates, wenches, barbarians, and sailors.

There was another flashbulb like strobe from the two witches, and in the confusion, Private Benjy, for the second time in a very short period of time, yelled for a retreat and withdrawal. For the _second_ time in a very short while, the Sunnydale Irregulars pelted en masse full speed down the street away from a fight.

They didn't stop running for more than eight blocks.

.

Some time later, all huddled together behind some hedges in a front yard on a cul de sac of something called 'Callisto Circle', they managed to _finally_ catch their breath and recoup their badly shaken nerve.

With a bit more presence of mind than Bev had at the moment, Corporal Bucky and Private Sergeant Cookie took a quick head count, once they'd recovered, and Bucky looked at First Sergeant Benjy and said, "We're missing Private Admiral Mayhem and Private Calamity, ma'am."

Everyone looked at her expectantly, and all Beverly could come up with to say was, "Crap."

After awhile, when that was all that was forthcoming, Private Kitty Kat stood, stretched, gave Benjy an almost contemptuous look, and said, "I'm going back."

Private Devila of the Sunnydale Scouts stood also, looked at her, and said, "Me too."

Private Princess Wicked and Private Misty both looked at them and said, "You're insane. You're _both_ insane."

Private Kitty Kat shrugged, and said, simply, "First Sergeant Benjy said that Tech-Sergeant Hicks said we don't leave no one behind. I'm not gonna."

"'Kat's right." Devila nodded and said, "But you don't have to come."

"I'm going," Corporal Bucky said. After a moment, Private Princess Wicked nodded. The rest of the group looked at them all like they shared Misty and Wicked's earlier opinion.

Beverly sighed, and once again, reached down inside, pulled on her big sergeant pants, stood, and said, "She _is_ right. But you're not going, I am."

Bucky looked at her, and said, "No, ma'am."

"_Yes__,_ ma'am," Sergeant Benjy said. "I'm going because they're _my_ responsibility. Tech-sergeant Hicks _said_ so. You're staying, because you're second in command, and if we don't come back, you're in charge. You gotta lead everyone back to base at Sunnydale High School."

Bucky opened his mouth, sighed, and closed it. "I hate it when staff sergeants pull rank."

"Hey," Benjy said, simply. "I'm counting on you. Give us twenty minutes before you give up on us." She turned to Private Pirate Roberts and said, "Gimme one of your pistols." He looked at her, shrugged, and handed it over without a single word. She stuck it in her belt. "C'mon, 'Kat, Wicked, Devila. Pooka – you're with the others. You're their scout now until we get back."

"Ma'am! Yes sir, ma'am!" Private Pooka said, snapping off a salute.

"And remember: no flying too high. I hear everything changed back and you went splat, I'm gonna be mad." First Sergeant Benjy turned and led her little rescue party away without another word.

.

They ran into – almost over – Private Admiral Mayhem wandering down Jupiter Drive. _She'd_ managed to get away in the confusion and fighting. They didn't _ever_ find Private Calamity even when they'd managed to back track all the way back to the scene of the fight with the pirates.

_Then_ they found her rifle near the slashed and broken body of Nurse Girl sprawled in a yard, not very far from the equally savaged body of the skimpily clad Bunny Girl. And lots of blood. There were no pirates, pirate wenches, sailors, barbarians, or hairy things around any longer, except for the bodies of two of the pirates. The black clad cat girl wench and the black bearded one Benjy had first talked to...

First Sergeant Benjy, aka Beverly Sheridan, stumbled off a few yards deeper into the yard and was violently sick. Then she sat down, hard, and cried for the first – and _last_ – time that night.

After awhile, she stood up and went back over to where a morose looking Mayhem, an equally morose looking Devila, and a pissed off looking Kitty Kat and Wicked were still standing staring down at the body of the two dead, older girls. She picked up Calamity's western rifle, and held it at port arms.

"No more," she said, quietly. "We don't leave anyone behind, ever again. And we're not losing anyone else."

"I agree," Kat said, equally softly. Private Admiral Mayhem and Private Devila nodded their agreement, also. "How we plan on doing that, Chief?" Kat asked.

"I'm open to suggestions."

* * *

.


	15. The Man in the Back Said Everyone Attack

**Chapter Fourteen: The Man in the Back Said Everyone Attack (It Turned Into a Barroom Blitz)**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: The Fish Tank, Sunnydale Waterfront District, Evening 6:35pm – _

Detective Paul Stein stepped out of the abattoir the inside of the bar had become, and lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag, savoring the nicotine as his partner stepped out the door behind him.

"Man," Detective Lundy said, shaking his head. "And I thought I had seen or heard everything in this damned town, so far."

"That's Sunnydale," Stein said. "Always surprising. And not in the good ways." Especially not if you were a cop here, he reflected.

"A huge, blond, naked male teen wanders in, asks some guy for his clothes, and then starts killing people right and left when he's attacked?"

"Heh. Sounds like something out of that Schwarzenegger movie, doesn't it?" Paul said, chuckling. "What was it... Reanimator?"

"Terminator," Lundy said, lighting his own smoke and folding and putting away his case note pad. "Re-animator was the Lovecraft one."

"Ah."

"Yeah. Naked killer robot comes back from the future chasing a future soldier sent back to protect a waitress. Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and Ahnie."

Stein stared at his partner. "You, my friend, are truly an endless font of cinematic trivia."

"It's a knack," Lundy said. "But I can't blow my horn _too_ much: you're probably the only human being alive in the nineties that _hasn't_ seen the two Terminator movies."

"I don't care for science fiction," Stein said, shaking his head. "Gimme a good Mickey Spillane or Travis McGee novel any day." He took out his cell phone, looking down at the signal bars with rueful disgust. Damned things never worked when you wanted them to.

"Mine too," Lundy said.

Stein nodded. The waitress who'd called it in had said that the phones in the Fish Tank had stopped working at some point during the assault. She'd had to use a patron's cell phone to call the cops, and _it_ had cut out half way during her 911 call, dispatch had said.

His partner's walkie-talkie crackled, and Lundy pulled it from his belt. Radios still worked, more or less. But even they'd been spotty ever since sundown tonight...

"Crap. We got another one," Lundy said, putting the talky back on his belt. "Gun store got hit by a young guy with a big automatic pistol. Two dead."

"The Harris kid?" Stein's interest sharpened.

"Naw. Initial description from the witness who called it in said the guy leaving matched the vitals of our guy from here," Lundy said, waving back toward the Fish Tank. "Heard the shots, saw him leaving with one of those big nylon camo gear bags on a strap over his shoulder. Big enough to carry an arsenal in... "

"Great. _Just_ what we need," Stein said, sourly.

Lundy looked at him, his expression thoughtful. "You know... in the first Terminator movie, one of the initial places the robot hit was a gun shop."

"Why I stick to novels," Stein said, "Movies rot your brain." He shook his head, and added, "Go tell the uniforms we're called away, and to get the reports and witness statements on our desks. Tell 'em we'll send another plain clothes unit to follow up here... if we can."

Lundy nodded, dropped and stepped on his cigarette, and went back inside.

If they _could_, was quickly becoming the operative phrase tonight, Stein reflected. So far, in a short period of time, they'd been swamped by reports of all kinds. Fires, murders, shootings, explosions, assaults, robberies, even silly season stuff like calls of monsters chasing – and sometimes killing – people all over, and even _pirates_ attacking a boat in the yacht basin and an off campus bar near UCS. Ever since dark, both the Sunnydale PD and Sunnydale County Sheriff's Department, and emergency services and even the Fire Department had been stretched ever and ever thinner trying to keep up and cover all the calls...

It was like Sunnydale had picked Halloween night to decide to melt down really good for once and for all.

Sighing heavily, Stein went to get the car.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: West North Avenue near Grapevine, Sunnydale, Evening 6:45pm – _

"Crap," Aura said, closing her cell phone. "Still no signal."

Daniel Rand looked on with barely concealed wonder. He'd seen and was used to portable phones and car phones where he was from, but he'd never seen a hand held radio telephone small enough to flip shut like one of those Star Trek communicators and slide into a pocket or purse. A 'cell phone', to his awareness and knowledge, was about the size and shape of a brick...

That, almost more than anything else he'd seen and heard so far, did lots to convince him that he was not only possibly not in his world, but also not in his _time_, even.

Struck by that thought, he decided to take a risk on looking stupid – it wouldn't be the first time, anyway – and said, "Uh. By the way, what's the date here?"

Aura blinked, and turned her head to look at him. Arching an eyebrow, she said, "Halloween. Thirty-first of October, like, duh."

Danny didn't resist an urge to roll his eyes, and said, impatiently, "I _know_ that. What _year?_"

If it were possible for Aura to look at him even more strangely, she did. "Nineteen Ninety-seven," she said, slowly.

Danny stopped, shocked, almost causing Lady Willow to walk into, or rather, through him. She muttered something uncomplimentary and walked around them. Princess Buffy also stopped alongside, looking at him curiously. Seeming almost preternaturally aware of her surroundings, Kendra stopped up ahead of them and looked back curiously as well.

"Uh, why? What's wrong," Aura said, giving him a suddenly worried look.

"I- it, uh, was Nineteen Eighty Nine the last... when I was... I mean, right before I suddenly appeared here," Danny said, swallowing hard.

"Oh, my," Princess Cinderella, or possibly Princess Buffy. "It was sixteen seventy in my realm." Kendra nodded, as if that had confirmed something she'd suspected, possibly.

"Ok, that explains a lot... no, wait, no it doesn't," Aura said, frowning. "It was just a year ago, like, January '97, that you vanished."

"I told you. I'm not Jesse McNally," Daniel said. "My name is Daniel Rand, and it was 1989 when I was sitting in our office in Manhattan. And then I was _here._" His voice was a lot quieter than he felt it should be. Inside, he wanted to scream.

Aura nodded, biting at her lower lip. "We need to get to Willow's," she said, finally. "You badly need to look at a mirror. And not a dinky little car mirror, or a compact mirror, either."

Danny started to speak, and Aura held up a hand in a 'stop' gesture and said, "I'm starting to believe you. There's something _really_ bizarre going on here. But _you_ have to believe _me_: whoever you are, you are wearing my friend's _body_ right now. Or else you're his exact _double_, as in, a separated at birth thing."

"It can't be any stranger than anything else so far," Danny said. Looking around, he took a step and sat down heavily on a nearby curb, putting his head in his hands. After a moment, he felt, smelled, and heard Aura and the princess sit down on either side of him and put their hands on his shoulders.

"Well, at least it's only a decade or so," the Princess said, in at least an attempt to be reassuring. "You're not displaced by centuries, as I am." Once they had managed to convince her that automobiles weren't demons, and aircraft overhead weren't _dragons_, and she'd stopped screaming at them, the Princess had settled down and been more or less level headed, he reflected.

"Guess there is that," Danny said, laughing softly despite himself.

"We'll figure it out, somehow," Aura said. "Right?"

Kendra's voice said from a short distance away, "It is my firm intention to find de source of this and to end it, yes."

"A pity my car was, like, defunct," Aura said, "Or we could have been here by now and you'd be about that thing."

She had managed to rescue her purse and her cell phone when they'd gone to check, but the car had been no longer in running condition.

Danny looked up, struck by a sudden memory. "When Lady Willow said something about her story, it seemed like it rang a bell with you?"

"Well... " Aura looked up at Willow, who watched them curiously, and shrugged. "Yes and no. Local legend: in the late 1920's, like around twenty-nine or so, a young woman named Rowan had a suitor and fiancé who was a pretty handsome local man, or so it goes. Unfortunately, he was _also_ a real two timing jerk who was having an affair with Rowan's younger sister, _Rebecca_. Well, _that_ much isn't legend, really, and neither is the next parts. Anyway, one night just before Halloween they took his car up to the Point by Kingman's Bluff, where I guess even back then teens and college age kids went to make out and do whatever they did in the twenties. While they were up there, they walked up to the edge of the point to look out over the Pacific and – "

"He gave me the most awful shove," Willow said. "And I fell out and down and down, until I suppose I hit the rocks below, but I really don't remember that part of it. Except that it was _Willow_ and Rebecca, not Rowan, and it was Nineteen and Twenty-_four_."

"Uh huh," Aura said, nodding. "And mister two-timing jerk went running and drove back and reported that she tripped and fell. And they searched and dragged for her body, but they never found it. Must've washed out to sea. And then a year later, he married the younger sister, who was now the heir to the family money... "

"Don't tell me, let me guess," Danny said, smiling slightly. "And ever since, on nights when the moon is full, you can see Lady Rowan, or," he made a gracious gesture, "Lady Willow, walking the lonely cliffs and roads around Kingman's Bluff."

"Oh, you've seen this episode, huh?" Aura said, grinning.

"This one is true," Lady Willow said, "But it is only on Walpurgis Night, and Samhain, when the walls between this world of the living and the Never-after and the Ghost Roads are at their thinnest that I am able to manifest so that others can see and interact with me. And I with them. And the three days before and after each one, of course." She looked at Aura, and asked, "Do you know the rest of it? I've often wondered... "

Aura nodded, "Uh huh. But it's kinda grim, though. The fiancé married the sister, and they lived here in town for, oh, about fifteen years together. And then he committed suicide, supposedly. Big scandal: supposedly he killed himself to keep from going to the army in World War II. Other rumors were that she killed him, because she took another lover about six months later. But no one could prove anything, so it went down as a suicide," Aura said, "Until she died in nineteen eighty-eight, and they found her diary among her effects and estate."

"She wrote it all down?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Every bit of it, even to describing how they'd planned Rowan's murder together, and how she'd planned to shoot him with a pocket automatic because _he_ was cheating on _her_," Aura said. "_Big_ scandal. Sunnydale leading citizen involved in decades old murder conspiracy. Even made the papers in L.A., I understand. Three day media wonder and all that."

"My word," Princess Cinderella, or Buffy, or whoever she was, said, "To think that people haven't changed, even in centuries."

"The more things change," Danny said, nodding. He frowned, thinking furiously now. "Huh. Creed looked different, somehow. I don't remember his skin being so dark before when I fought him."

"Huh. Been thinking about that. His face kinda reminded me of someone... " Aura said, slowly. She snapped her fingers suddenly. "Got it. He reminded me of Broderick, uh, Crawford. No... _Carmichael_, that's it. Broderick Carmichael. Varsity football player from Grant High School. I dated him once, real jerk."

"Huh."

Buffy looked up abruptly, and gave a small shriek, her eyes widening. A group of small monsters came running past, stopped to stare at them, and then growled and ran on when they saw Kendra's suddenly drawn sword and knife.

"We should continue," Kendra said. "It is not safe out here."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:45pm –_

Cordelia Chase was starting to get a headache. Owen was good looking, hey – all salty goodness for a high school boy – but his Dickinson and poetry fixation, and his newly revealed danger and death fixation when she'd asked him about his comment to Harris, was getting on her nerves. Ok, _had_ gotten onto her nerves. She glanced over at the club's main bar. Harris was still sitting over there, nursing another O'Doul's. And the group of pirates were still down the bar aways, doing... eww. Doing a _lot_ of things that the bouncers _should_ have kicked them _out_ for by now. Jeeze. One thing to do _that_ in the privacy of your back seat, or even in a dark booth _upstairs_ if you had to, but right out in the open here?

Cordelia shuddered. Not that she was a _prude_, or had _anything_ against _sex_, God knows. But when _she_ had sex, it was gonna be with someone she really liked, or maybe even loved, and so _not_ bent over a railing at the _Bronze_ of all places. And was that one of the Bronze waitresses?

Cordelia made a mental note to never ever sit on that railing again.

She tuned in Owen briefly, and tuned him back out again, continuing to look at him wide eyed and hanging on his words like she was fascinated. She could _so_ fake fascination when she needed to...

Lucky the band was playing loudly enough that she could barely hear him, even if the discordant beat was making her temples pound along with it. Unlucky that she had a full drink and no real excuse to get up and go to the bar for another one.

Geeze. _She'd_ be having more fun if she just went over and grabbed _Xander_ and dragged him over to join Tamara and her geek pickup. And how weird was _that_ to think about? But at least _Xander_ could talk about something besides poetry, and he was a decent dancer if there was a slow tune or a classic dance tune, and hey, he was pretty much getting to be a hero by now. Even if he was the school's biggest geek, a skater punk, and the self-proclaimed King of Cretins.

And he was looking kind salty himself, with that new muscle he'd put on from somewhere and that scruffy look...

Too bad that that would absolutely kill and _destroy_ her social status. Bad enough for a probationary Cordette like Tamara to do so. _Tam_ was from the Caribbean. They have different standards of cool. But for her? No way.

There was a shout, and a clatter from somewhere near the dance floor, toward the front of the building. Loud enough to be heard even above the bad near garage band playing tonight.

Cordelia looked up and over, and then frowned. Was that _Larry?_ Oh my god, it was!

Even as she watched, Larry shoved another couple out of his way, causing a chain reaction that dumped three other couples into a tangle on the dance floor. He grabbed a table and flipped it out of his way, drinks and glasses going everywhere, and explaining the crash and the clatter she'd heard before.

Wow. What was into _him_?

Wait. Larry stepped past another jock, ducking his head out of the way as the basketball player shouted and took a swing at him, and retaliated with a headbutt that put the other boy down like a sack of bricks. Since when was Larry almost as tall as Jordan Marshall? Larry was tall, yeah, but like six two. Not even _close_ to Marshall's nearly six foot eight. And, wait... Larry was built like a line backer, huge for a quarterback, but wow. Had he put on an extra eighty or so pounds of bulk since school this afternoon? What, super magic steroids or something?

Cordelia froze. She shouldn't even think that as a _joke_. Around _here_? It might be.

Another disturbance caught her attention and she looked over to the other side of the dance floor to see Xander shoving his way through people in this general direction. He was holding his big prop shotgun up in one hand, like _that_ was going to do anything. And like _he_ was going to do something... even with a bit more muscle than she'd thought he had, Larry had _like_, seven or eight inches and almost a hundred _pounds_ on him now, from the looks of it.

Ok, so why was there a red dot on the front of her catsuit? Oh, gods, did she spill something on her outfit? Jeeze. She brushed at it irritably. Several times, as a matter of fact, before she realized that it wasn't going away, it was moving around, and it was appearing on her _hand_ as she brushed _through_ it...

"Holy fuck!" Owen yelled, and there was a sudden hard shove to her shoulder, and then Cordelia was on the floor between her chair and the table next over with, like, _zero_ idea how she'd gotten there. She looked up at Owen in surprise and irritation, opening her mouth to yell at him and –

– And there was a sudden, huge, flat clap of noise, and another, and Owen's head was just, like, _gone_. Nothing but a huge splash of red and white like when her Daddy had shot a watermelon with a .270 hollow point to show why you didn't play with guns, and...

Oh, shit. Owen was shot! And falling, crumpling off his feet almost in slow motion.

Aphrodesia stood in front of where Cordelia was now sprawled, horrified, and she was screaming. There was another loud, flat clap of noise, and another, and then she was falling back onto the table all loose and limp like a rag doll. Cordelia screamed and started to scramble back on her heels and elbows as fast as she could.

Another flat clap of sound came, and then a bigger, louder, double flat clap, and people were suddenly screaming on the dance floor nearby. A _shotgun_, Cordelia's mind supplied, almost absently. She'd shot enough skeet and trap to recognize the sound of a twelve gauge shotgun anywhere.

All of the other Cordettes were out of their chairs and either hitting the ground, or running and scrambling away, all of them screaming. Most were tripping and falling, those high heeled boots weren't made for abrupt running starts on slick floors... And then Larry was standing over the edge of the table, holding the most enormous handgun Cordelia had ever seen in real life. One with some sort of thing that was putting out a red beam... and another, only slightly smaller one also with a red beam, and a scope, in his other hand. She screamed again, and scrambled back even faster.

Larry just kicked the table and it went flying off to the side, toward the left end of the room where the pool tables were. As in, completely off the ground and through the air over other tables and _people_ flying. He lowered the one, huge pistol until it was aimed at her, the red dot crawling onto her chest. Cordelia sucked in a breath, and closed her eyes as she continued to try to crawl away on her back –

The shot never came.

There was no hard impact on her chest, no pain, no sudden coldness like she'd read about. There was just...

Just a sudden loud, flat, clap clap clap clap of noise like someone unloading a twelve gauge in a hurry, the hard way. Which was just what it _was_, she realized, almost numbly. The sound was joined after a few claps by a deep, rapid, staccato thrumming sound, like someone setting off M-80's in a string all at once.

Cordelia's head hit something behind her, and she realized it was the leg of a table and oh, god, she couldn't get away and she was going to die –

– A strong hand grabbed her around the upper left arm as the staccato noise kept going on and on, and yanked her up onto her knees, and a rough, harsh – and very familiar – voice said, "Come with me if you want to live."

* * *

Tam gripped Murphy's left forearm, hard, as the big guy shoved a bunch of people over and shoved a table up and over with a crash.

"I see it," Murphy said, gripping the pistol grip of his Thompson. He'd been watching the big man ever since he'd come past the entryway, frowning as he tried to puzzle him out. Something about him, and his carriage... he didn't seem to quite walk or hold himself quite right, somehow. Then the guy had started getting violent as the crowds on the dance floor and the side of the club impeded his passage. Just shoving at first...

Murphy threw another glance around the club, looking for the bouncers he'd spotted earlier. Now, where were they... Nowhere in sight, apparently. Heh. Just like MPs. Always up your rear when you're minding your own business, and _never_ around when you could actually _use_ one.

Paladin and Cahill were doing the same thing he was, hands on gun butts and rifle grip, and scanning the club in between watching the big blond man.

Murphy sighed, and shook his head, really not wanting to deal with this.

Not that he was a coward. _Never_ a coward. But the man had almost half again Murphy's height, and probably three times his weight, all of it what looked to be solid muscle. There was bravery, and then there was stupidity. In a fight, the guy would probably pound him, Paladin, _and_ Cahill into a thin, red paste.

About all someone Murphy's size could really do to stop him was shoot him. And outside of combat, in the regular world, it was only in John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart movies that guns generally _solved _problems. Most problems, anyway. There were some they solved real well, wherever you were. In the real world back home, they usually just created a dead body and messier problems than you had before.

"Someone has to do something," Tam said, her voice fierce and intense.

"The floor is open to suggestions," Cahill said.

"Preferably ones that won't get a bunch of people shot, and all of us in the hospital and then arrested," Murphy said. Tam glared at him, and then gave him a wry nod and a rueful expression.

Good. The other soldier had left his seat by the main bar, and had just finished placing his hand on the railing separating it from the main club, and vaulting it to land lightly on the balls of his feet below. He had the big shotgun out from his coat with the stock extended – evidently, he wasn't as concerned about the possibilities involved in shooting. Murphy lost sight of him as he began to push his way past the crowd on the dance floor, the shotgun pointed up at the ceiling.

Not before the soldier's eyes swept the room and caught Murphy's in passing, and the man gave him an almost microscopic nod.

I've got this, that nod said, in the wordless shorthand that all veterans understood perfectly, and that you could never ever teach to anyone who _hadn't_ seen the elephant.

"Blast," Paladin swore, and Tam gasped.

Later, Murphy was amazed at just how _fast_ it all went pear shaped when it did. It always does, and you never expected it no matter how many times you saw it...

The big man shoved another couple and they went staggering aside, taking several more couples down with them in a clump on the dance floor. Then he kicked another table and sent it flying. Then...

Murphy shook off Tam's hand, his eyes widening, and grabbed her forearm, pulling her from her stool as he slid off of his, and shoving her roughly down. "_Down!_" he hissed, and then yelled, "GUN!" at the top of his best command voice.

Moments later, there came the sound of a shot, and he couldn't _see_, damn it. Rather than do the sensible thing and hit the dirt when the guns came out, everyone in the vicinity, it seemed, had stood up and was craning about to see what was going on. Damned fools. Standing, Murphy was hampered by his height – or lack of it – in seeing over and through the crowd. He didn't have and couldn't get a clear shot, dammit, and he _wasn't_ gonna jump up and down with an automatic weapon like a kid trying to see a parade.

"GUN!" he yelled again, adding, "Get _down!_" He could hear Paladin and Cahill cursing from next to him, and knew they were having similar problems.

There came the flat sound of another shot, a heavy caliber pistol shot, followed by another. And then the flat, loud, double crash of a heavy gauge shotgun going off twice in rapid succession. A slight gap opened and Murphy threw a glance that way to see that the other soldier had finally opted to clear the crowd on the dance floor by the simple expedient of firing the shotgun into the ceiling. The people parted like the red sea around him, screaming and rushing away in waves, or hitting the deck all about.

Now why didn't I think of that? went through his mind, even as he was raising the Thompson, muzzle aimed up, and triggering a long burst.

The blast of automatic weapon fire and his wordless scream did what all of his shouts hadn't: people were suddenly screaming and _moving_, away from the guns, at last, or hitting the floor in a wave. And, incidentally, giving him, Paladin, and the Marshall a clear line of fire.

Murphy leveled the Thompson, lining up the sights and placing the front sight on the low center of mass on the big man, who now had two very large semi-automatic pistols out, one in each hand.

There came then the flat, loud, rolling crash of a heavy shotgun firing almost as fast as it could be fired, being emptied the hard way. Murphy added his two cents to it, squeezing the trigger of the sub-machinegun. It went off in a loud, staccato burst as Cahill opened up with her rifle and Paladin with his handgun.

Not in a continuous burst of full automatic, of course. He fired as he'd been trained: short, precise taps of the trigger and five round bursts coming so tightly together that they just _sounded_ like one long one, pulling the gun down between as it climbed in recoil. From the corner of his eye, Murphy noted the other soldier running toward the table the big man was standing near, shoving shells into the shotgun's magazine as he ran.

And they weren't _doing_ anything. Even the rapid impacts of the heavy twelve gauge loads in rapid succession hadn't done more than make the blond man twitch. The automatic fire of the heavy .45 ACP rounds, Cahill's thirty caliber rifle rounds, and Paladin's .45 Colt weren't even doing that. Just annoying him.

Despite his fire control, the long string of bursts inevitably walked up the target's side from his midsection, across the left side of his chest and neck, and into the side of his head before Murphy eased off the trigger completely, bringing the weapon down to reacquire.

Another thing the Bogart and Cagney movies didn't show you: a Thompson _kicked_, and it _climbed_ when fired...

The big, apparently impervious man turned his head in their direction, raising the big 1911 style semi-auto in his left hand. Murphy dropped to one knee, lining up the sights again. Cursing, Paladin and Cahill dove to the side as the man opened up on them.

The first three rounds went just over Murphy's head and into the bottles behind the bar where it would have been, had he not dropped. He opened up again, just as the twelve gauge did also.

Continuing to fire, the blond swept the pistol across, tracking after Cahill and Paladin, emptying it until the slide locked back. He turned his head again, tracking back to the other soldier with the shotgun as people screamed, huddled, ran, or curled into balls with their hands over their heads all around them.

Murphy took advantage of the brief respite to reach back and grab his carbine, pressing it into the hands of the shaken and nearly _white_-pale Tamara. "Can you use a rifle?" He'd already asked about and had learned that her pistol was a toy, a prop.

"Yeah," she said, nodding shakily. Her lips firmed and her eyes hardened. "I can even use an M1 Carbine. Daddy taught me. Why?"

"It's an M2. Selective-fire. Is there an exit to outside back that way?" Murphy said, ignoring the why. He'd get to that... Paladin and Cahill had opened up again, trying desperately to at least _distract_ the guy and give the other soldier some cover.

"Yeah. Under the exit sign, at the end of the hall past the rest rooms and dressing rooms."

"Good. Go down to the end of the bar, and I'm gonna go and get those girls out of there, and send 'em back to you. _Get_ them _out_ of here." Tam opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it, nodding grimly, her mouth a thin, hard line. Good girl. She started to crawl down the bar along the floor.

"Cover me," Murphy said to Cahill and Paladin. He saw that the other soldier had run in right under the guns and grabbed a girl in a cat suit, the Chase girl, and was pushing her toward the back and other side of the club, firing his shotgun back one handed at the big killer.

Murphy had brief surge of near incandescent rage at the man for retreating, even as he admired his nerve for rushing in that close, and then it registered on him in a burst of insight.

The wariness with which the man had kept scanning all the entrances and exits. The alertness he'd paid to the crowds. And the way his eyes had always, _always_ gone back to the Chase girl in her tiger skin and leather leotard. _Not_ the looks of a man ogling a pretty girl, even though she was surely _that_...

The looks, carriage, and body language of a man with a mission. Mercenary, or possibly a bodyguard. His mission had obviously been to guard the Chase girl, and _now_ he was getting his subject out of harm's way, shielding her with his own body and gun as they ran...

All of that went through Murphy's mind's eye in a flash, and Cahill was asking, "What you got in mind?"

"I'm gettin' those girls out of there. And as many civilians as I can."

She glanced back to Tam, heading away to the rear, and nodded. Giving her rifle a quick rueful look, she handed it to Paladin, and said, "_You_ cover _me_. I'll do it. You got the heavier weapon."

Not waiting for an answer, she ducked and ran in a crouch forward from the bar as the blond man finished reloading and opened up on the rapidly disappearing soldier and Chase girl. The pirates near the bar finally got in on the act, and opened up on the big guy with their percussion pistols.

They didn't hit much, but they got his attention. He turned his attentions – and pistol fire – to them as Cahill reached the sprawled, terrified girls around that table.

Murphy took up a position at a billiards table, leaning forward and resting his left elbow on the edge. Hated to do it, but he let the brigands occupy the killer's attention as Cahill started grabbing and shoving terrified young girls back and away toward the rear... not wanting to draw his attention so that he could shoot at Cahill and them.

The other soldier apparently gave the Chase girl a shove, sending her scampering from the end of the stage to the short stairs leading up to the main bar area. He popped up over the stage, firing his shotgun, fast and deliberate, at the blond killer.

Cahill got the remaining – still living – girls moving, along with some of the other people in the vicinity, sending them back to Tam and the exits. She followed them, shoving and cursing with her pistol in her hand, for all the good it might do... Back of Murphy, Paladin was doing the same with the people around them.

"Move out," Murphy said, and Paladin nodded, starting to hustle the people he'd gotten moving ahead of him.

Murphy opened up again just as the other soldier ran dry and ducked back down, settling the sights on the big man's lower abdomen and triggering another series of bursts. Idly, a part of his mind wondered why he hadn't run dry yet, but somehow, a part of him also _knew_ the big drum magazine wasn't anywhere near out of ammo.

The big man stopped striding toward the rear after the other soldier and Chase, half turning as he dropped both of his magazines and reloaded. The other soldier took advantage of the respite, running after Chase, still reloading as he ran. Shoving his right hand pistol in his belt, the blond reached under the long coat and drew out a long automatic rifle of some sort, bringing it up and around as Murphy filled him with ineffectual and yet distracting .45 ACP rounds yet again.

Murphy dropped flat as the rifle opened up on semi-auto, shredding the top of the pool table.

Rolling away, he came to his feet and scrambled after Paladin and the last of the handful of people they'd been able to salvage. At the entrance to the Exit corridor, he took a kneeling stance at the side of it and aimed at the killer again, the Thompson braced against the wall. As the killer turned and started after Chase and the other soldier again, he opened up...

This time, the big blond just ignored the forty-five rounds thudding into him, striding remorselessly in the direction that Chase and the other man had disappeared in, but heading toward the rear exit sign on that side.

Murphy let up on the trigger and fell back down the hallway to where Paladin and the last of the people were going out the exit door Tam was holding open. He hoped against hope that he'd managed to buy the other two enough time to escape ahead of their pursuer.

But he'd done all he could do for now.

* * *

.


	16. Any Ports in a Storm…

**Happy Halloween, folks. ;)**

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen: Any Ports in a Storm…**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:__5__5pm –_

Outside the Bronze, finally, Cordelia crouched by the side service exit, more than just half in shock.

Larry Blaisdell had come to the Bronze after getting some sort of magic steroids infusion with guns and tried to kill her! She just couldn't quite wrap her mind around that concept. The phrases '_Larry_ was _shooting_ at _me_! He _killed_ Owen and Aphrodesia!' kept running through her brain in an endless, incredulous loop.

Right along with that was another set of phrases that were nearly as outrageous: 'And _Xander_ saved me! With a real gun!', which was just...

Ok, the concept of Xander _saving_ her wasn't so very outrageous, maybe. He'd done it before. But with a real shotgun and acting and moving and shooting like he really _was_ the soldier he'd dressed as earlier?

_Not_ computing.

Okay, yes Xander could shoot. They'd _all_ learn to shoot, even Willow, out at Rory's place when they were kids.

But there was like, _major_ difference between plinking targets and tin cans and even thrown targets with a .22 or a .410, and... what _Xander_ just did. Cordelia had gotten enough out of the anti-kidnapping courses she'd been forced to take to recognize _that_. There was _shooting_, and then there was professional gun handling, like the teachers at that Ranch place in Arizona...

The service exit door opened and Cordelia recoiled, her hand going to her suddenly open mouth and her eyes widening. Xander came through it all low and in a rush, shotgun held in his right hand and his eyes scanning everywhere before they fixed on her.

Cold _blue_ eyes, so unlike Xander's warm laughing brown ones...

Cold blue eyes that warmed immediately on seeing her, even as they narrowed in something like irritation. "Thought I told you to head for the front of the club and wait?" He grabbed her by the wrist with his left hand, not waiting for a response, and starting pulling her along in that direction, crouching as he ran.

Cordelia yanked her wrist from his grasp, or tried to. Might as well have tried yanking it out of a vise...

"Let _go_ of me! And just what the _hell_ is going _on_ here?" she said.

"I will. As soon as we're clear," Xander said. "And I thought it'd be obvious: that big guy was trying to kill you dead." His voice sounded almost amused on that one.

"I _know_ that part," Cordelia said, exasperation taking the place of shock. She yanked at his hand again, futilely. "What I want to know is _why_, dammit!"

"Run now. Explanations later," Xander said. "And why _didn't_ you head for the front?"

"I didn't want to run into Larry coming out," Cordelia said, in an abruptly and unexpectedly small sounding voice.

Xander threw her a look that was suddenly sympathetic, and nodded. And that was _all_: an understanding nod, no smart ass comment. So _unlike_ the dork head...

They reached the front edge of the Bronze, and Xander paused, throwing a quick nervous scan around the entrance and parking lot, and then led her across toward a row of cars. Half pulled her, rather. Reaching a big, dark blue Cadillac Escalade, one of the half pickup types, he pushed her toward the passenger side of the truck. "Get in, _hurry_," he said.

"Why?" Cordelia said, tossing her hair away from her face. "Larry _has_ to be dead, as much ammo as you and that other guy pumped at him. And, God, was that _Jonathan?_ With a real _machinegun?_"

"Dunno. And _no_, that thing is _not_ dead," Xander said, stepping up on the driver's side running board and looking over the top at her. "And would you _please_ get in?"

Exasperated, Cordelia threw a glance behind them and froze momentarily. Larry really _was_ so _not_ dead. As a matter of fact, he was just coming past the edge of the corner of the Bronze that they had just left... And he was holding some sort of really long, black rifle.

Cordelia opened the passenger door and threw herself inside as Xander did the same on the driver's side. She yanked the door shut behind herself, huddling in the big front foot well as Xander turned the key and stomped the gas as soon as it turned over. Cutting the wheel right almost as soon as it was clear – it had been parked nose out with the keys in the ignition – he accelerated toward the parking lot exit onto South McElhaney.

A sharp pop-pop-pop of gunfire started up behind them, but none of it seemed to hit their vehicle as Xander steered expertly around a car entering the lot, and then careened wildly out the exit and onto the street.

"You can get out of the floorboards now," Xander said. "I think it's safe for the moment." Glancing at the side view, he added, "But don't buckle in: we might need to bail at a moment's notice."

Cordelia nodded, feeling a bit numb. She slid out of the foot well and onto the bucket seat, huddling there with her arms wrapped around herself. Throwing a quick look at the speedometer, she saw they were going over seventy miles an hour... Cordelia started to say something about that, shivered, and rethought it and kept it to herself.

Faster they got away from Larry, the sooner the better for all of her.

"Look out!" Cordelia yelled suddenly, gripping the dashboard with her left hand and the passenger side hanging strap with her other. A group of kids in monster costumes were running up the street nearly right in their lane.

Or maybe not kids, and not costumes, Cordelia thought as Xander slewed the wheel and veered around them. Some of them weren't moving quite right...

"I saw them," Xander said. He spun the wheel left and turned onto West Main, heading into town.

"Well, slow down," Cordelia said, snapping it at him. "And, where are we headed, anyway?"

"Away, for just now," Xander said. He glanced sidelong at her, looking a bit irritated, but eased off the gas a bit, slowing to fifty-five. He turned onto Sundowner heading north, handling the big vehicle at speed with reassuring competence. "And then to a safe place, if we can find one or figure one out."

"My house," Cordelia said, automatically. "Take me _home_."

"Negative," Xander said. Cordelia looked at him sharply, and he shrugged, "First place he'll look now that he's lost you. And none of your friends or anyone you'll know. He'll go there as well, hunting you."

"Oh gods, this is like some nightmare, I swear to God," Cordelia said. She looked at the side view mirror on the passenger side, and froze, her mouth falling open.

There were lights behind them, coming up fast. Cordelia _hoped_ it was a cop, but she didn't think so...

You never, _ever_ saw a Sunnydale cop when you _wanted_ one.

Cordelia found her voice after a moment. "Is that... " she pointed at the side view, not finishing because her mouth was suddenly too dry.

"I suspect so," Xander said, stomping on the accelerator again as he spun the wheel to the right. They screamed down East Alvin, Xander weaving around and past other cars, stalled cars, and groups of running people both in and out of costume.

It didn't help. The lights sped up on them, fast. "Oh gods," Cordelia said, "Is that your _dad's_ new truck?"

Xander raised his eyebrows, but he didn't say anything other than, "Brace yourself." She did, as he swerved violently left onto Venter Street.

"What... " Cordelia was half tempted to close her eyes, but she didn't dare. She gripped the strap for all she was worth as the big half-truck roared up to ninety miles an hour up the two lane Venter. Which dead ended at Oak Street _way_ too few blocks up... "_Xander! _What are you _doing!?_"

He flashed her a quick glance and a wild grin, and said, "Trust me."

"Oh you are so _not_ Harrison Ford– " the rest was cut off as Cordelia closed her eyes and screamed...

She opened her eyes again, just as Xander downshifted, double clutching, and threw the big SUV sideways around the corner at Oak and Venter, hanging a sliding right that brought them around and _up_ on the driver's side wheels before they dropped back down and, fishtailing violently, shot off with a screech of tires and white smoke –

– The vehicle behind them wasn't as lucky, or else Larry wasn't as good.

It tried the same maneuver and went _all_ the way over, rolling once and going into a sliding crash on its roof into the line of parked cars along Oak. Xander almost immediately slowed down to fifty again, hanging a right onto Moore, and then an immediate left onto Pine headed east again.

Cordelia stopped screaming finally somewhere around where they went through the intersection of Pine and Anson Street.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 6:55pm –_

Out back of the rear exit door, there was an alleyway. Immediately, more than half of the people they'd saved bolted for the alley's exit to the south.

"Stop them," Corporal Murphy snapped, "It may not be safe yet." Cahill cursed and ran after the scattering people, pulling up to a stop at the end of the alley.

"Sorry," she called back. "But it seems clear for now," she added.

Murphy nodded, and then spun as a figure stepped out of the shadows at the other end of the alley, bringing up the Thompson reflexively. The figure strode forward, coming into a patch of light...

No person in a costume this. It looked like a man, being man shaped and upright, and male. But it wasn't a man, or even human. It had great ridges of bone bulging out the brows, and a wrinkled forehead and the eyes were lambent, glowing yellow. And the teeth... those canine teeth wouldn't have looked out of place on a cougar nearly as much as they did in the semi-human face.

Murphy didn't hesitate a beat. He continued bringing the Thompson up and around, socketing the stock into his shoulder with his finger on the trigger.

The figure sneered and said, "Guns don't – "

Whatever it was about to finish with was cut off by the staccato roar of the Thompson. Murphy centered his sights on its solar plexus, triggering rapid fire bursts with his best fire discipline. The range was only seven yards, and the pattern of forty-five caliber heavy slugs climbed inexorably up the line of the breastbone to the V of the collarbone and into the hollow of the throat.

The thing's head suddenly lolled, falling forward and rolling to the side as the heavy bullets chewed into its neck. There was a sudden weird hissing scream, and it burst into a shower of dust, rot, and ash that began to drift to the alley floor...

Murphy let off the trigger, lowering the sub-machinegun.

"Apparently, guns do," he said.

"What the hell was that?" Tamara said from beside him, and on his left. It wasn't until she lowered the M1 Carbine from her shoulder that he realized she'd been firing right alongside him.

Damn, but he really _liked_ this girl.

"Not sure," Murphy said, as Paladin came up on his other side, still holding Cahill's rifle. "But I saw something like it once before. On a battlefield in Italy, just past dark. It was feeding on the wounded. One of the guys in my squad hit right at its feet with a High Explosive Willy Pete from a bazooka, and it caught fire and then did just what that one did."

It had been wearing a French Vichy uniform, he recalled...

"Willy Pete?"

"White Phosphorous, ma'am," Murphy said. "High Explosive Incendiary round."

Tam looked at him sharply, and then shrugged and smiled. "You know, I'm really starting to believe you _are_ Corporal Audie Murphy, soldier."

"Ma'am," Murphy looked at her earnestly. "I never lie to pretty girls. Only a scoundrel or a carpetbagger does that. And I try to not ever lie to anyone if I can help it. I know you're skeptical, but I _am_ who I say I am."

Tam nodded slowly. "So, who are you when you're not Corporal Murphy? And if it turns out you're here to stay, can I keep you?"

Murphy stared at her, and then a slow smile spread across his lips. "Ma'am, we'll have to negotiate that with your father when I ask him for your hand, I guess."

Tam grinned back at him, and shook her head, saying, "I'm too young to get married. How about a really long courtship until I'm at least out of school?"

Murphy suddenly noticed that they had apparently picked up another couple of guns. Among the people who hadn't run were a taller man – late teenager, rather – with dark hair and hazel-green eyes, wearing a white v-necked, long sleeved shirt, a black vest, trooper style boots, and dark pants with a red stripe down the sides. He was holding what looked like a Mauser broomhandle pistol, only with an odd looking magazine well, and a thicker barrel with a belled out muzzle. And a telescopic sight.

His companion was a female of about the same age, dark haired and dark eyed. She was wearing a white, leathery full body jump suit and white boots, with her hair up in an odd, coiled bun, and was holding a similar, but slenderer pistol in her left hand.

Murphy raised an eyebrow, and the male gave him a lopsided half grin, sliding the odd Mauser into the holster on the low slung, buckled down gunbelt. "You people seemed to have the right idea, so we followed the crowd and tried to provide some covering fire. His companion nodded, holstering her own odd pistol.

Murphy seemed to vaguely recall other firing as they were leaving, but it had had an odd sound, and he hadn't really registered it as gunfire... He nodded to the man. "Corporal Murphy, and this is Tam."

"Solo," the man said, "And Leia," he indicated his girlfriend.

"Tam?" one of the girls from inside, the pretty oriental one, said, "What is going on? Was that Larry Blaisdell? And- and, hey! Is that _Jonathan?_"

Tam shook her head, and turned. "Have no idea, Nicole," she said. "And, naw. It's Audie Murphy," she winked at Murphy, and added, "It just _looks_ like Jonathan."

Murphy reached up a hand, feeling his face wonderingly. He never had gotten around to really looking at a mirror... he looked at their rescuees. For the most part, the little group of girls from, uh, Cordelia's table hadn't bolted. Too shocked, he guessed. And they had a few others, still.

No gunfire had come from the side parking lot, so if the fleeing group had run into... whatever that guy was, he, or it hadn't shot at them. Probably too intent on the Chase girl and her protector. He had seemed awfully single minded.

"What are we going to do?" another one, a pretty colored girl, said, plaintively. Murphy couldn't blame her for her tone of voice. It had been a hell of an experience, even for a combat veteran. Much more so, probably, for a group of sheltered girls. "I- I m-mean... Owen and Aphrodesia are _dead_. And Xander dragged off Cordelia with that- that _thing_ after them?"

"Dunno," Tam said, again. "We'll have to figure something out." She pulled some sort of little silvery folding gadget out of her camo dress pocket, and flipped it open, frowning at it. "Damn. No signal."

Murphy looked at it curiously, as did Paladin and Cahill, and she raised her eyebrows at them. "Cell phone?"

Murphy shrugged, exchanging confused looks with the other two. Whatever... he put it aside. "I'm going back in," he said, "To see if that thing is gone, and to check on the others in there. And maybe to find a phone so I can call the local cops."

Tam frowned at him, giving him a worried look. Then she reached out and grabbed a handful of Murphy's uniform blouse, and pulled him in and kissed him fiercely. "You be careful, dammit," she said. "And, good luck on the cops. I've heard that the Sunnydale Police are about this side of useless."

"I will," he said.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: La Quinta Street near Miller's Wood, Sunnydale, Evening 6:55pm – _

They were lost, and it _so_ wasn't her fault, darn it. Well, not _lost_ exactly. First Sergeant Benjy had an idea of where they _were_: if she was interpreting what her scouts were saying right, and hadn't gotten her sense of direction completely messed up, they were somewhere just by Miller's Wood, not far from the UCS Campus. Right at something called Calico Court off of La Quinta. Or right at the beginning of it, rather. They'd just run flat out of La Quinta at a roundabout...

Assuming it _was_ Miller's Wood. It was kind of hard to tell. Private Devila didn't know Miller's Wood from Breakers, and all Private Pooka could tell her was that it was "a big dark scary enchanted forest with nasty stuff, and really spooky. And a road." And Private Kitty Kat couldn't do much better, except that she could count and she said there was a "big six lane street on the other side with metal thingies." Which sounded like a highway, which sounded like Route 150, so... Miller's. No highway near Breakers Wood that she knew of.

Which was great. She knew roughly right where they were. What she _didn't_ know was how to get where they were _going_ from here. Especially not safely...

"We're lost, aren't we," Private Misty said, looking torn, bedraggled and more than a bit forlorn. Her Tokyo Pop Princess costume was looking just a bit worse for wear, also.

"Nope. I know right where we are," First Sergeant Benjy said, deadpan.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Right here," she said, grinning with a cheerfulness she didn't exactly feel. Private Misty wasn't reassured.

"Oh, great."

"Hey, I'm doing the best I can, darn it," Sergeant Benjy said.

"I know. And you're doing great, really," Misty said. "It's just... " she sighed. "I'm hungry, and tired, and scared, and I want to go home."

"I know. Me too," Beverly said, sighing. Not something she could admit to any of the others, except for maybe Kat, or Pooka, neither of whom were disturbed if their leader was disgruntled and homesick, but... Heh. She never would have expected it, but somehow, probably because they were the only two in their group who _hadn't_ become transformers, she and Misty had actually struck an odd camaraderie with each other.

"Hey," Private Kitty Kat's voice said, practically right in Private Misty's ear.

"Yikes!" Misty levitated about a foot, and landed clutching her chest. "Jeeze... "

"Will you stop that," Sergeant Benjy said, giving Kitty a sour look.

"What?" Private Kitty Kat said, here eyes wide and her expression pure innocence.

"Scaring the heck out of people!" Misty said, glaring at her.

"But it's fun," Kat explained. "And I'm bored. And hungry. And the Sergeant won't let me eat Private Pooka."

"Oy... " Sergeant Benjy shook her head, half irritated and half amused. She looked over to Corporal Bucky, some yards away with his squad. "Yo! Buck." When he looked over, she made a circular motion and said, "Break time. Get 'em all rounded up." He nodded, and started drawing people together and getting them all in one place.

Again, _not_ her fault.

Setting up the scout team had been a stroke of genius, she'd thought, not really patting herself on the back too hard. The scouts had _more_ than made up for the aggravation Private Kitty caused by spooking people for entertainment, by helping them avoid at least three times as many encounters as they'd actually had.

Then they'd set off for base...

She'd _tried_ to remember the list of streets the Tech-sergeant had named for their patrol route back, she really had. And she'd _thought_ she had them, really. And then about a block or so down Second, once they'd worked their way back up and turned, there'd been the fight with the hairy _things_. And then they'd run into those big kids and adult people in costume who'd evidently transformed and had the fight with them.

That had gotten ugly. They'd would have run, if she'd realized, but they'd had to stand and fight, once it had become clear that the big pirate kids were real pirates, or transformed ones, anyway. And they would have lost, and Benjy and several others would have been all pirate captives, if the hairy things hadn't shown back up... And they had lost Private Calamity. Never found her, or even her body. Nothing but her lever action rifle, which Bev was still carrying.

At least no one got badly injured. Not on _their_ side, anyway. And she didn't _think_ they'd killed anyone...

Shrug. First Sergeant Benjy's concern for any transformed people, or anyone else, who threatened any of the kids in her Irregulars was rapidly approaching dead zero. If they didn't want to get damaged, they should go chase someone else. She wasn't losing any _more_ of her kids, and if that meant that someone else got hurt? Better them than us.

They'd already been in too many fights for her to really care about the other guys any more. And at least four of her people were injured now. None badly as of yet, just bruises, sprains, scrapes and scratches, or bloody noses and black eyes, but...

Enough was enough. No more of that.

After those, their next encounters had been with groups of transformer kids, or kid sized monsters. Some had looked at the grim faced and raggedy looking group of twenty-five Irregulars, gaped, and run like heck. Some hadn't. The ones that _had_ were the lucky ones. Benjy and her squad leaders had smartened up and hardened up by then...

It was purely amazing how suddenly a marble or rock from a wrist rocket to the kneecap or solar plexus could make someone or some _thing_ lose interest in chasing you. Or lose interest in grabbing one of the Irregulars, when applied elsewhere. Ditto for an arrow from Private Lady Robin's bow, or a ball from one of the cap lock guns. Private Kitty Kat's claws and teeth weren't to be sneered at, either, and she applied them with enthusiasm when anyone attacked someone in the squad near to her. It was also amazing how well an ambush worked to take the hostility out of even a group of snarling, tiny monsters. A quick flurry of gunfire, arrows, and rocks at wrist rocket velocities before turning to run, _also_ worked to discourage hostiles.

No, they _hadn't_ killed anyone _yet_, but if this weirdness ever ended, there were gonna be a few transformers who were gonna come out of it in the emergency room. Wah. See above.

But every hostile encounter they had avoided had caused them to detour a bit. And every hostile encounter they _hadn't_ avoided had caused them to run at some point before or after turning to fight. And every time, they'd been driven a bit further off the path, until Beverly had no idea exactly how to get back to it without getting more lost.

At least now she knew that if they went west and then north and north, sooner or later they'd hit Ocean, Main, or Wilkins, and they could work their way back to the school once they were downtown.

It might take 'em awhile, but... they'd make it. _All_ of them. She was gonna make sure of that. Somehow.

"All right," Bucky said, coming over to her. "Everyone's rounded up and gathered more or less together for a rest break. Gonna address the troops?"

"Yup." Benjy headed over to the group, Kitty and Misty trailing along side. "Ok, anyone got any candy left?" There were several acknowledgments that there were, and she said, "Ok. Eat it if you got it and share with someone who doesn't. We're gonna take ten before heading on again."

There were grumbles and groans, but they were just routine. Everyone pretty much broke out what little rations they had left, and shared them out and settled in to munch and rest up.

Private Devila popped up out of nowhere, and said, "Hey, Chief. Private Pooka says that past the end of, uh, the bend on this street, there's a patch of wooded lot with a creek running through it, and another street, and buildings with lights and glowing tubes and stuff. Sounds to me like it might be a shop or something?"

"Huh. Cool." Beverly thought about that for a minute. That could mean cold drinks, and a pay phone. Or a phone they could borrow. And rescue... kind of like getting a chopper for evac in the war movies.

"She also says there's a group of weird people around it," Private Devila went on, "Like we've run into before."

"Crap." Bev glared at her, and said, "Next time? Do the 'I've got good news and bad news' thing, and just give me the bad news first, ok?" Private Devila looked confused, but nodded agreeably. Bev looked around, and said, "And go find Private Pooka and bring her in too. Briefing time."

Private Devila snapped off a lazy salute, said, "Aye aye, Captain," and headed off, vanishing into a pool of shadows outside of the streetlights.

"Aw right people, I've got good news and bad news," Sergeant Benjy said. Private Misty looked at her, grinning and shaking her head. "The good news is, scouts may have found us a convenience store and some civilization. Bad news is, there's some more possibly transformed folks, so we may be in for another fight."

A mixture of groans and cheers greeted that. Beverly rolled her eyes privately. Cheers. Geeze. Some of these people _liked_ the fight encounters.

"You were supposed to give us the bad first," Misty said.

"Oh, hush, you," Private Benjy said. "If it is, and we can get through to it, we can get some drinks and snacks. I think I have an idea where we are, so we might even be able to find a fast food place and get some burgers or something. We can also even _possibly_ call for an EVAC and didi-mau the heck outta this mess." _That_ got cheers all around. Even the ones that were looking forward to pounding on some more kiddie monsters and kiddie creatures didn't mind the idea of getting back to home base. And even the pirates and swashbucklers and whatever who weren't sure what an 'EVAC' was liked the idea of getting off the streets and yards. "So... who all has money of any kind?"

There was a lull as people either looked blankly at her and each other, or started to dig in pockets, purses, or pouches. After awhile, crumpled bills and change started being produced.

"I have a number of bank notes and coins," Private Pirate Gwendolyn said, "But they don't look like any doubloons I've ever seen." The lady Swashbuckler, Lady Robin, and their Musketeer nodded, looking dubiously down at the money in their hands.

"Pass 'em over and I'll look at 'em," Benjy said.

The two pirates, the lady swashbuckler, their musketeer, Princess Wicked, and Lady Robin had almost twenty-five dollars between them in crumpled bills of various denominations and loose change. Not all of the other troops had pockets in their costumes, or purses or anything like that, but the ones who did each had _something_, even if it was just change. And Beverly had not only the twenty dollar bill her mom made her pin inside of her shirt whenever she went out, for emergencies _only_ (and, boy, was this an emergency!), but also nearly ten dollars in bills and change in her fanny pack that was left over from her birthday and Christmas money, and around three dollars and sixty cents in crumpled ones and silver in her uniform pockets.

All in all, the troop could put more than ninety six dollars into the platoon fund. Beverly blinked at the amount, and then realized that in a group of twenty-five or so nine to eleven year olds who could each usually be counted on to have at least a couple or three dollars in ones and change each, or more on Friday (allowance day) that was about par for the course. Maybe a bit light, considering that some of them came from fairly well off families and got decent allowances.

What it _meant_ was: they could eat pretty good if they _did_ find a burger place.

Not quite enough to get a cab back to base for everyone, she didn't think, even if they could find a taxi big enough to take twenty five kids. Darned shame. There was a really nasty glow above the tree and roof line, and had been a lot of sirens, off toward where Benjy figured Ridgecrest Mall and the Zoo might be, that just had to be a fire...

"Aw right, break's over," First Sergeant Benjy said. "Private Pooka? You got point for the scouts. I wanna know if there's anything approaching us from anywhere. Sav? You're with the scouts for now, 'til otherwise. And, _you_, Pook – follow Pooka Rule One. Remember what that is?"

The diminutive Private Pooka rolled her eyes, and said, "Yes. Don't fly more than five feet up unless it's a 'mergency. And, phooey. That's no fun."

"Yeah, but if whatever is making this happens quits and all the magic goes away, it _also_ means you won't fall and go _splat_ from thirty feet in the air," Benjy said. "So _do_ what I say." A four or five foot fall probably wouldn't hurt the kid too bad, unless she fell on her head. Broken bones healed. Going splat! didn't.

"_Fine_," Private Pooka said, sighing heavily and rolling her eyes again. "Phooey." She zipped off, a careful five feet off the ground.

"Ok, let's roll 'em."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, Evening 7:00pm – _

"Buffy? Hello, Buffy?" Angel called out, stepping through the kitchen door of Buffy's home. Lucky that people didn't often lock their homes against regular crime in Sunnydale. He'd hate to get Buffy in trouble by forcing her back door. He shut the door behind himself, and moved through the kitchen into the living room.

"Buffy? Are you here? It's just complete chaos out there... "

Stopping when there was no answer, Angel listened hard, finally deciding that there was no movement in the house, and the scents in here weren't more recent than a couple of hours. He decided to look around anyway, just in case Buffy was asleep upstairs.

No. No Buffy. All he found was a note for Buffy and Dawn reminding them that Mrs. Summers would be back late, and that there were meals and snacks in the refrigerator waiting to be heated and/or microwaved.

Hmm. He'd already tried the Bronze, and the area around there, and had then headed here on the off chance that Buffy had come home first. He dithered for several minutes, brooding about where to try next. Or if he should wait here. Willow's, possibly. Or the school... it was possible that Buffy had been held up there, either by the spreading chaos, or for something to do with the kid's escort program.

Entirely probable that Buffy was out attempting to patrol in this... whatever it was. It really wasn't like her to just stand him up on plans for meeting him. Not even if she _had_ been acting strange toward him ever since she'd walked out after finding him talking with Cordelia at the club several nights ago.

After another few minutes, he decided to check Willow's house, as it was closest, and then the High School and library, before beginning to drive around Sunnydale looking for her and her friends.

Decision made, he stood, and then there was a thudding sound from the back door, followed by a crash of glass, and a crashing noise as the door was opened. Opened _hard_.

Angel didn't hesitate, he ran in through the doorway from the dining room, and paused, almost in shock, as he saw another vampire in the kitchen. How in the hell? He knew good and well that Buffy knew better than to invite anyone in directly. And he doubted that Joyce would have invited some strange teenager in... unless this was, or _had_ been, a classmate of Buffy's.

"You. I have chosen this dwelling for my repast," the other vampire, a slender blond former teenager of about Buffy's age. "Begone."

"Hey, I was here first," Angel said, shrugging. He had stopped to cut and sharpen a stake earlier after he had already run into two other real vampires out and about despite the date. He reached for it now, moving forward at vampire speed and without hesitation.

The stake went in with more resistance than usual, that was the first shock. Wood usually entered a vampire with relative ease, as though the unnaturally preserved flesh welcomed the release.

The second shock was that the other vampire did not dust, and there was no weird hissing scream of an escaping demon. No, wait. There _was_ that scream, in the other vampire's last exhalation, but it _still_ didn't dust. And there was a sudden wet gush over Angel's hand, and the acrid, freshly cut coppery smell of blood...

He looked down in shock and dismay as the body slid off of the stake, collapsing limply and awkwardly to the kitchen floor with none of the grace you saw in movies. A pool of red began to spread out around the body.

Oh, dear God, no.

Angel had just staked a human.

And right inside of Buffy's _home_. Suffering faith, and the Saints cover us all with preservatives...

* * *

.


	17. The Pause That Refreshes

**__****Warning: **This chapter contains scenes of non-consensual sex and violence.

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen: The Pause That Refreshes...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: 1635 West Olive Avenue near Orange Street, Sunnydale, Night 7:00pm –_

"This is starting to look depressingly familiar," Lundy said, looking around the gun shop.

Stein nodded. "It is at that," he said. "Our perp is not only getting around, he's arming himself heavily, unless I miss my guess."

"Too bad there's no one alive to give us an inventory so that we'd know for sure," Lundy said, "But I'm not gonna bet against you."

Stein watched the uniforms as they marked off the scene, carefully avoiding anything that might be evidence. Uniforms... all two of them. At this rate, SPD was going to be down to a half a car and a police dog per crisis. Assuming they could even find a police dog to spare... it was starting to shape up into a hellacious night.

The worst he'd ever seen in almost thirty years of police work. Damn.

Stein had a depressing feeling that it was gonna get even worse before the night was out. "You get through to forensics yet?" he asked his partner.

"Barely," Lundy said, "But, yeah. Phone lines are down all around this area, the uniforms said. And my cell kept cutting out... but I did get through."

"Good." And radios were all static, more often than not now. Weird.

"'Course, I was told that the way they were stacked up with calls, it was gonna be awhile before they got here," Lundy added.

Stein grinned sourly, and then started as his pocket vibrated. "Speaking of cells," he said, taking his out and flipping it open. "Stein, Homicide."

He listened for awhile, and then closed it silently, looking off into the night through the barred glass at the front of the store. After a short bit, he shook himself, and gave Lundy a bleak look.

"Got another one. Our perp from here just finished shooting up that teen bar in the warehouse district, the Bronze," he said.

Lundy swore. Worst thing next to a cop killing was kids getting killed, at least by his and Stein's standards.

No. The _worst_ thing was that Chief Munroe and apparently City Hall did their best to bury details on kids getting killed, and just how _many_ got killed or vanished in this town.

"Even better," Stein said, now grinning sourly. "The Harris kid was involved, too. And some soldier with a sub-machinegun."

"Wait," Lundy said, blinking. "Harris and this soldier shot up the place too? _With_ our perp?" He waved around the gun shop, and added, "Working together?"

"No. The teenager who got away after the shooting started – ran probably, and smart kid to do so – said that Harris and soldier boy were shooting at our perp and trying to _stop_ him, looked like," Stein said. Lundy's eyebrows went up, and Stein continued, "And get this. The soldier was wearing some sort of WWII outfit."

"Ah... right," Lundy said, blinking.

Nodding, Stein said, "Kid found a place where his cell worked and called it in, panicked, while hiding behind some cars. He _also_ said that it looked like Harris was trying to kidnap a girl in a tiger skin outfit."

"Huh." Lundy shook his head. "Man, this just gets weirder and weirder. He say who the girl was?"

"He didn't know," Stein said. "He also didn't get any vehicle descriptions when they took off."

"Crap."

Stein nodded, punching numbers into his cell again once he saw he still had signal. After a bit, he said, "Chief? Stein here..."

Following a short pause, he said, "Look, Chief, we got a major situation here. We got a big blond kid who's heavily armed and running around doing spree killings. Just massacred a bunch of teens at the Bronze with handguns and an automatic weapon," Stein said. "And we're spread so thin we couldn't comb a _dog_ for fleas, much less handle all of the calls we're getting. This town is in meltdown on us."

He paused again, frowning. After a bit, he held the phone away from his ear, rolling his eyes. Lundy smirked. Putting the phone back to his ear, Stein said, "Look. Yeah yeah... what I want is this: we need to get on the horn to CHP, if we can get through, and have them put some cars on blocking all roads into and out of Sunnydale so that our perps can't get out without being caught. And to contain all this crap. And we need to get the County Mounties to pull in all of theirs and help us get a lid on this."

Stein winced and took the phone from his ear again. After a minute, he put it back, and said, "Yeah. _Look_, Munroe, I _know_ we don't like to get outside departments involved. I _know_ the Mayor doesn't like it. But we _need_ the assist here. Hell, we may even need to call the Santa Barbara PD and get them to send some patrol units and detectives, and CBI, before this is done."

Sighing, he listened for awhile, and then said, "Yeah. Right. You do that." Punching the disconnect button, Stein flipped the cell closed, giving it a sour look.

"What was that?" Lundy said, his eyebrows raised.

"He's gonna talk to his Honor the Mayor and see what he has to say."

"Ah."

Stein scowled at his phone, and then sighed. Shaking his head, he flipped it open again, and checked it for signal. Miracle of miracles... he started to scroll down his contact list and punched a number.

"Who're you calling?"

"Sheriff's Office," Stein said. "I know the Assistant Chief Deputy, and he's not a complete waste of skin. And I know a few Chippies, and even a couple of guys in the Santa Barbara PD."

"You _really_ don't want to see your retirement, do ya," Lundy said, chuckling.

Stein looked at him, grinning. "Y'know? It occurs to me that I was looking for a job when I found this one."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Grapevine__ Road__, Sunnydale, Evening __7:00__pm –_

The trio of Ninjas hit them a few blocks later, on Grapevine where Aura said they were starting to get close to Willow's house. It was taking them longer to get there than she'd said, but then again, Aura probably hadn't figured on them having to dodge, detour around, and hide from encounters with all sorts of things.

They'd even had to pause a few times to help other people. Not as many as he would wish, but they had avoided all but the most immediate emergencies, even though it had gone against both Daniel's and Iron Fist's grain.

The bad guys in ninja suits just up and appeared and jumped them, like they had coalesced out of the shadows. Two male, and one female. Two had short sub-machineguns that Daniel recognized as Heckler & Koch MP5's, and all had swords that looked like tachi, rather than katanas or the 'ninja-to' of Hollywood.

Daniel flowed from Danny Rand to Iron Fist so quickly and so smoothly he never noticed the transition.

Stepping in, he grabbed the barrel and fore-end of one HK with his left hand, wrenching it aside and up, and brought the heel of his hand up in a leopard paw strike under and into his opponents chin. A near simultaneous back hook kick sent the other sub-machinegun spinning away from the second one's hands.

That one leaped back, drawing his sword, as Iron Fist brought his knee up in a time honored dirty fighting maneuver and his current adversary double over abruptly, retching.

Stepping away, he took the man down for good with a spin kick to the temple as the now sword wielding ninja clad figure rushed in, sword going back behind the head for a classic diagonal cut. Iron Fist wasn't there when the blade came across and down.

He leaned impossibly back and away, allowing the tip of the blade to slice past a bare centimeter from the front of his body, and then came up and around outside the blade and the arms, taking the swordsman's leading wrist in his right hand. A nerve strike to the complex of nerves at the point of that shoulder sent that entire right arm numb and useless on the ninja.

Iron Fist then stepped back and leaped into the air, nailing a spinning back kick into the back of his adversaries neck. The man dropped like a pole-axed steer, and didn't move.

When Danny Rand touched down lightly onto the balls of his feet, Kendra was crouching over the body of the other sword wielder, wiping her sword blade on the woman's clothing. She slid the blade into its scabbard, and stood and stepped back from the body.

Corpse, Danny saw, now. He looked away, but didn't feel sick. Or at least not _too_ sick...

Warriors did that in combat. It was bad, but the three _had_ been trying to kill them. It was only good fortune and superior skill and speed that had prevented Iron Fist from needing to take lethal measures.

It was only in movies and comic books that an unarmed martial artist engaged lethally armed opponents with potentially deadly unarmed combat maneuvers and didn't ever need to use lethal force. Or only when dealing with adversaries as resilient and powerful as Creed, or any number of other metahumans. _They_ could take full power blows and live. Armed human beings... sometimes, you just had no choice. Sometimes, they hurried you too much to be nice and gentle.

Iron Fist had killed before. Both as Daniel Rand, and as his costumed persona. He never liked it, which set him apart from Creed, who relished the kill, but he had done it. And he had come to terms long ago with the act and the necessity.

Or, possibly he _hadn't_ avoided lethal measures, after all... as he watched, all three bodies began to hiss, and then dissolved into black smoke that drifted away on the slight breeze, leaving only humanoid black smudges behind on the pavement.

"Hand," Danny said. Kendra looked up curiously at him from the dissolved body of her opponent, and he added, "The Hand. They're a mystical order of Assassins from Japan."

"Ah," Kendra said, nodding. "Like the Order of Teraka."

Danny shrugged. He picked up one of the sub-machineguns, examining it curiously, and then turned to look at the others. The Princess had a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and shocked. Aura swallowed hard, looking pale and more than a bit ill.

Danny could sympathize. He started to fling the HK into the bushes by the side of the street, and Aura said, "No!" and grabbed his wrist.

Danny looked at her curiously, frowning slightly, and she gave him a defiant look as she took the weapon out of his hand. Bemused, he let her.

"I am so tired of being unarmed and helpless," Aura said. "Besides, we just can't leave these things lying around where kids might find them." Kendra nodded slowly.

"Do you know how to use a sub-machinegun?" Danny asked, his eyebrows going up.

"I know how to use a rifle," Aura said. "And if we can figure out how to set this on semi-auto, I can use that just fine." Danny shrugged as she went over and retrieved the other SMG from the street where it had fallen.

Willow was looking impatient, but hadn't said anything nor done anything during the fight. But, Danny supposed, there wasn't much she _could_ do. Princess Cinderella was frowning, and after a long moment, she said, "I suppose I could have one of the swords. I, too, am tired of feeling helpless."

"Well," Kendra said. "Gather dem up and bring dem with, if you wish. We must go."

"You say it's only a short way now?" Danny asked. Aura nodded, slinging one MP5 over her shoulder, and holding the other.

"Yeah. About three more blocks once we turn onto Meandering Way, about a block or so up from here."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Pajaro Lane__ near __La Serena__, Sunnydale, Evening __7:00__pm – _

The street on the other side of the little wooded lot and the creek had proven to be Pajaro Lane, which if Bev had known this, would have sealed her certainty that she had an idea of where they were. South of the Mall, by about ten to twelve blocks or so. And a long way from Sunnydale High by foot...

No point in grumbling. Pooka, Kat, and Devila were fantastic scouts, but their ability to read and decipher street signs left a lot to be desired.

What it did mean was that Pajaro Lane and the streets north of it were all light commercial stuff, and office parks, strip malls, and apartments and condos. Not only a seriously high chance of finding convenience stores, _bathrooms_, thank you God, and fast food, but also really _good_ cover and concealment for movement.

After so many encounters on residential streets with fences and hedges limiting them to sidewalks and open street a lot of the time, First Sergeant Benjy was becoming a wholehearted _worshiper_ of good cover and concealment.

If you see 'em first, you can avoid 'em or hurt _them_ first.

Sure enough, once they got out of the cluster of houses and yards at the roundabout end of Pajaro, past the woods, it opened up into _just_ the kind of street Beverly was expecting. Ms. Swatch Watch's Indiglo hands said that it was just a bit past seven PM now. Beverly's older sister had given her the swatch a few years back, saying that it 'wasn't cool any more', whatever that meant. Bev liked it. It _worked_, all the time, and it was waterproof, unlike a lot of the cheap kid's digitals she'd had before.

Suppressing a pang and a sniffle, she wondered if she'd ever see her bratty pain in the rear of an older sister again. Oh well, buck up, Sergeant.

Following a quick strategy session with Corporal Bucky, Private Sergeant Cookie (who'd turned out to be a decent squad leader after her initial freak out had passed), and the rest of the uniformed types, Sergeant Benjy had decided to take first and third along the right side, heading from cover to cover. She had Corporal Bucky's team do the same on the opposite side of the four lane street.

She'd given serious thought to slipping up on the intersection through the alleyway behind the apartments and strip malls on her side, but only for a moment.

Alleys at night in Sunnydale were _seriously_ dark and spooky. And Kat, Pooka, and Devila had seen _things_ in them that they said were scarier than most of the transformed things they'd run into...

Now, First Sergeant Benjy looked out across the nearly dead, traffic wise, four lane expanse of La Serena Way at the parking lot and store front of the Circle K on the other side of the intersection. She was in a good pool of shadow at a building front, with the rest of her two squads spread out and hidden likewise in various spots along the commercial frontage. Bucky had his people concealed similarly on the other side of Pajaro.

Yup. Uh, eight, no... ten plus kids across thataway in costumes of various types. No monster or creature costumes, but that didn't mean anything. Benjy wished she had her Girl Scout field glasses. Don't leave home without 'em. But from what she could see... there was one dark kid in a Union civil war uniform, another blonde haired girl wearing a Captain America costume with a shield like Bucky's, and one girl in a Cat Woman outfit who looked to be in charge over there. And an assortment of Ghost Busters, cowboys, adventurers, Riding Hoods, Wonder-landers, and other types. Even a couple of military type kids, which kinda worried First Sergeant Benjy...

And a freaking gray leopard spotted cat-girl like Kitty Kat in a black and gray outfit. Well, futz.

Ok. Time to pull a habit out of some rats.

"Pook," she said, quietly, and the tiny faerie zipped up, hovering in front of her with her glow dimmed as low as it would get. "Go and fetch me a Corporal Bucky." Private Pooka snapped off a salute, and zipped away low to the ground, weaving behind and around bits of cover.

Benjy gave a low whistle, followed by two short ones, bringing her other two squad leaders and both other scouts up to her, along with Private Saavik.

"Ok, Sav, anything?" The little Vulcan frowned down at her tricorder, deciphering whatever it was that it told her. Bev had tried to make sense of it once, but gave up when the displays kept _changing_ on her...

"Hmm. They appear to be mostly normal humans, Captain," Saavik said, no longer bothering to correct the diminutive of her name. "Most of them appear to have the tell tale energy signature of being transformed, however."

Rats. She'd been hoping for normal kids...

Bucky popped up from the shadows behind her and down a bit, being _almost_ as good at that as Private Kitty Kat, she'd discovered. He hunched down next to her in their concealment.

"All right. Bucky? I want you to take your squad and work your way across La Serena and into the office park bordering the left side of the Circle K lot. You have ten from when we split. Pook, you're with me. Kat, you and Devila work your way around to where you can come up from behind them if possible, and get ready to do what you do. Hotstuff, you have First Squad once I split off, and I want... " Benjy looked around, thinking, "Lady Robin, Pirate Roberts, Princess Wicked, and Private Cagney with me. Cookie, you spread your team out here, and Hotstuff, you take your squad and work across the street and up on the other side of Pajaro from them and watch to see if things break open."

"What ya got in mind, First Sergeant?" Corporal Bucky asked, his voice curious.

"Gonna just walk across and have me a parley," Sergeant Benjy said, and then smiled. "And if they turn out to be bad, we're gonna flatten 'em."

That got smiles from the scouts and all three team leaders. Not very _nice_ smiles, but hey, by _this_ point... they were all no longer exactly very nice people.

Not kids. They quit being kids when they lost Private Calamity. They were soldiers now, and they were deep in enemy territory, and the _enemy_ had best look out for their _own_ tails, because the Sunnydale Irregulars weren't playing no more.

"All right, Bucky, Pook, go and send me a Dread Pirate, a Robin, and a Wicked, and let's make it happen."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 7:10pm –_

Holding his Thompson aimed up in his right hand, Corporal Murphy eased open the rear door to the Bronze and stuck his head around it cautiously. Looked clear. And it sounded quiet, too. Even the discordant music from earlier had been shut off at some point during or after the firefight.

Not that he'd expected to see anything hostile, not really. The big blond, uh, _thing_ seemed like a good word now, _thing_ had seemed pretty single minded about following Miss Chase and the other soldier as they ran from the club.

If he had fully realized that was going to happen, maybe he could have just held his fire and not have needed the nerve wracking effort of getting the girls and others out the back from right under the thing's guns. It would have strode on, not bothering to fire at the other civilians.

Then again... no. Not only no, but hell no.

You don't abandon someone to the enemy just to save your own skin, or save yourself some effort.

Murphy could no more have just allowed that thing to go after Chase and her escort unimpeded, and kill them, possibly while he watched and had a perfectly good weapon to hand, than he could have... walked on the moon or something. He just wasn't built that way.

Anyway. "Clear," he said, easing around the door and moving down the short hallway after holding it for the next in line to grab. Solo and that Leia girl eased in after him.

Murphy had, after a very brief moment's internal debate, opted to take the two newcomers over Paladin and/or Cahill. Better to have the two people whose abilities he trusted watching the rescuees and Tam. Besides, while Leia lacked Cahill's dangerous aura, she radiated competency and command presence. And while the sarcastic Solo didn't have that air of just flat, cold deadliness Paladin radiated, everything about him gave off an impression of sheer competence and a quietly reassuring solidity.

The club was almost empty of everyone except for the dead, the dying, the wounded and groaning, and those too terrified or too deeply in shock to do anything except wander aimlessly or huddle somewhere.

"All right," Murphy said. "Looks like our bad guy continued on his way."

"Does look clear," Leia said, not holstering her odd pistol. She also was holding it aimed at the ceiling, in the manner of someone who knew how to handle deadly weapons.

"Doesn't mean that there's not still a hostile around," Solo said, suddenly cold eyes sweeping the bar. He also had his not-a-Broomhandle out and aimed upwards.

"Yup." Murphy nodded. "All right, quick but thorough sweep, this side to the front, then back quartering the main club, and up through the raised area and the main bar on the other side."

Solo nodded. Leia looked at him, and asked, "No offense, Corporal, uh, Murphy?" at Murphy's nod she continued, "But who placed you in command?"

Murphy looked at her. "I did, ma'am. Because no one else looked like they were stepping up, ma'am."

"He's got you there, sweetheart," Solo said, throwing her that lopsided grin. She made a face at him but didn't continue the argument. Not really an argument: Murphy wasn't arguing.

The bartender behind the side-rear bar was dead. Apparently, he had caught a round through the upper abdomen at some point when the thing had turned on Murphy and the others, and had bled out. Murphy winced, but his face stayed impassive. He hadn't meant for that to happen... apparently Lady Luck had had other plans.

Ask any combat soldier: It's _not_ the bullet that has your name on it you have to watch out for. It's the one addressed to 'to whom it may concern' that's dangerous.

The other bartender on that side had apparently gotten out and fled at some point.

Miss Chase's date was dead, as was the blonde gal in the leopard trimmed mini-skirt outfit that had fallen over the table. Two more people behind Miss Chase's table were dead where the rounds had apparently gone through and hit. Or other shots had. One girl at a table behind was wounded, and groaning. Leia went over to her and knelt down to check her over, heedless of the gore getting on that white suit. Murphy approved.

"You're a medic, ma'am?" he said, crouching nearby and watching.

"No. But I know combat first aid and medical care," Leia said, frowning. "Just, not under these conditions. We don't have any of the equipment I'd need to stabilize her – she needs a real medic, an EVAC, and a surgical unit and medi-droid."

Murphy blinked at some of that jargon, noticing that Solo seemed to take it in stride. "Well, that's why we're here. To try and get emergency services and the cops in to help."

Leia put someone's jacket under the girl's head and eased her back down.

They found two more wounded and a dead one trapped under the table the big killer had kicked away and over the pool tables. As Solo and Murphy moved it off of them, Murphy wondered at the strength of the blonde killer. Tables at this bar were solid and _heavy_, and the man had just kicked it up and into the air like a kid kicking a tin can...

"She has a broken arm and a concussion," Leia said, "And he has probable broken ribs and a concussion. Maybe internal injuries." She stood up from her examination, frowning. "All I can do for them now."

They moved on. At the front doors, Murphy started to go through, and Solo gripped his shoulder with a hand. "Nuh uh, our turn," Solo said. "You watch the club and our backs for us – you have the heavier weapon."

There was an unmistakable note of command, of someone used to command, in the man's voice suddenly. It also made sense. Murphy nodded, and stepped aside, turning to cover the room.

With no loud music and conversation noises to drown things out, he could hear their voices through the closed double doors, out in the little foyer area:

"Stang, what a mess," Solo said.

"I know. This is awful."

"Y'know, I'd feel a lot better with Chewie here watching my back."

"_You'd_ feel a lot better in the Falcon heading _away_ from this rock with Chewie," she said. Her voice was sarcastic, but her tone held an undercurrent of amusement and affection. "Preferably with your holds full of loot and your pockets full of credits."

"And is something _wrong_ with that, your Highnessness?" Murphy heard the sound of the outer door opening, and then shutting again, long moments later.

"No. But there's more to life than credits," she said.

The doors opened behind him, and he turned, raising his eyebrows.

"Clear," Solo said. "Two bouncers and the girl who was taking cover charges and stamping hands are dead." Solo's face had that carefully expressionless look of someone who didn't _want_ to look sick at heart.

"Damn. Was afraid of that," Murphy said, "Thought it might be the case. I see another dead or dying bouncer from here, too." He gestured with a jerk of his head.

"Right." They both nodded. "There's a lot of people from in here out in the front lot, milling around. Maybe one of them called your local authorities and medical services," Leia said. "We'll have to check once we're done in here."

The trio moved on.

Ten dead so far. One wounded who might die. They checked the right rear exit hallway, and then Murphy led the way up the short flight of stairs to the raised area by the main bar in a low rush. And, damn. Again.

The pirate group was dead, most of them. There were a few wounded, and Leia checked them with brisk competency while Murphy and Solo kept watch.

Murphy hadn't liked that little group. They'd been boorish and obnoxious, and more than once he'd been tempted to go over and knock their heads together and kick them out of the joint... But they _had_ pitched in when it had counted, and on the right side, too. And had distracted the thing while Chase and the other soldier were making their escape. And they died for it. That one thing paid for all as far as Murphy was concerned.

Murphy went under the little swing up hatch in the bar to behind it, and found two male bartenders and a couple of the bar girls crouched at the end in a huddle, arms around their heads. They looked at him fearfully as he came through.

"Hey, I'm one of the good guys," Murphy said. He kept the Thompson aimed up, carefully, as he spoke and held a hand out palm forward. "You see another soldier with a shotgun and a pretty gal in a tigerskin and leather outfit go through here?"

One of the girls, a blonde in a medieval looking bar maid's outfit, nodded and pointed to the metal door leading in and back away from the bar.

"Thanks," Murphy said. He looked at the older of the two male bartenders and injected a note of command into his voice. "You. Get a phone and call the cops."

"Tried," the guy said, "And all the phone lines seem to be down."

And, crap.

"Cell phones too," the other girl bar maid said. She held out a little golden device like Tam had had. "Mine has, like, zero signal."

Murphy nodded and called the others through. Solo lifted the bar hatch, and they all went back through the door behind the bar. Nothing back there but storage and offices, employee bathrooms, and the side utility exit.

Back out in the bar, Murphy said, "All clear. That thing seems to have moved on. Let's get the others in."

Solo nodded, and Leia looked at the bartenders and bar girls. "Is there a first aid kit or medical kit anywhere? And blankets?"

"In the, uh, manager's office," one of the girls said.

"Show me." She turned to them and said, "I'll see what little I can do for the few wounded we have."

Murphy nodded, and he and Solo headed back to call their little group of refugees in. "Hope that the other soldier and Chase got away."

"You and me both, pal," Solo said, nodding.

"Gotta ask," Murphy said, and Solo gave him a curious look. Murphy nodded to the odd Mauser the guy had. "Why didn't you and her open up on it also?"

"We did," Solo said. He smirked, "But you were a bit busy at the moment, and kinda distracted."

"Ah." Murphy thought back to confusion of the firefight. "I probably was, at that," he said, nodding.

"Not that it mattered," Solo said, eying his pistol with a sour expression. "This DL-44 will cut through storm trooper armor and other stuff like butter, but it didn't seem to do much to that combat droid. Or Leia's blaster, either."

Murphy let the unfamiliar terminology go over him without comment like he had so much other unfamiliar stuff in the past few hours. Didn't matter. He could sift out what did matter.

"All right," he said, opening the exit door and calling out. "All clear in here. Everyone that wants to can come back in."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Alleyway off of Carpinteria Avenue near Waterfront, Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__1__5pm – _

"Stop!" Cordelia said. "Stop, pull over, pull in somewhere stop, stop, _stop_ the damned car already."

Xander looked sidelong at her, opening his mouth and starting to say something with a slight head shake, and Cordelia drew in a deep breath and let it out in an ear splitting scream that she was amazed didn't shatter the windows. Xander whipped his head around and looked at her, his eyes wide and shocked.

"Eyes on the road, dork!" Cordelia snapped. He whipped his head back around to the front, scowling. "Now, pull in somewhere and stop this damned car, or I swear to fucking _God_, Xander, I will pitch a fit that you so _absolutely_ do _not_ want to have going on while you're driving!" She folded her arms over her chest, glaring at him.

She could see the corner of his mouth twitching, and then the corner of his lips on the side of his profile that she could see curled up. "Ma'am, yes ma'am! Pulling in somewhere, ma'am." He frowned slightly, "Just give me a minute or so to find a good place, please?"

She nodded, her own lips starting to twitch in a slight grin. Damn, but that had felt good after all of the terror and freaksomeness and- and... _helplessness_ of earlier. Cordelia didn't _like_ feeling helpless.

Unfortunately, it had gotten to be an all too familiar feeling since Buffy Summers came to Sunnydale and vampires and demons invaded Cordelia's life.

Xander found an alleyway off of Carpinteria Avenue, and pulled into it, killing the lights, but leaving the engine idling as he pulled to a halt. He turned in his seat to face her, his face expressionless.

"All right," Cordelia said. "Now, what the _hell_ is going on, Dorkus? Why is _Larry_ trying to _kill_ me? And why is he so big now? And what's up with _you_? All grr and buff and all... soldier boy now, huh?"

"All right. Please, give me a few minutes, and I'll do my very best to explain things to you, Miss Chase. I _promise_, Ok?"

Cordelia raised an eyebrow at the 'Miss Chase', but otherwise just nodded. "Start talking, Xander."

"Well, first off, my name isn't Xander. I don't know why you keep mistaking me for him, but my name is Technical Sergeant Dwayne Hicks, Tech-comm, North American Resistance Command. Serial Number: TZE08191221-51612," he said. "Ma'am. All I can think of is that I must bear a closer resemblance to the Alexander Harris of this time than I did in mine."

Cordelia gaped at him, her mouth opening to say something, and then staying that way with no words coming out while her mind stuttered and raced around in circles. Finally... "His name is Xander. No one calls him Alexander except his grandmother. And I'm the only one who's ever been able to get away with calling him Alex," she said, a bit lamely.

"I know," Xander, or Hicks, or whoever the hell he thought he was said, nodding. "My briefing was very thorough on things like that."

Cordelia shook her head, trying to get her racing, whirling mind to focus. "_Your_ name is Xander. Alexander LaVelle Harris. _Xander_ for short, and you've _been_ Xander ever since we first met in _kindergarten_ when we were freaking five, dumb ass. Which, thank gods you weren't a Christopher, because I'd have _strangled_ you by now if I'd had to call you 'Topher' for the past dozen years."

"Yes, ma'am. And, no ma'am... "

"And will you _quit_ calling me ma'am? My _name_, in case you've _forgotten_ you brain damaged geek, is _Cordelia_. Repeat after me: Cor-de-li-a."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Arrrrgggghhhh!"

Xander's lips were starting to twitch again, and she knew he was working hard to suppress a grin, and so help her _God_ if this was a practical _joke_ she was going to... she was going to find _Willow_ and use _her_ to beat Xander to _death_ with. No, wait, this couldn't possibly be a practical joke. Not even with the help of Giles, Ms. Calendar, and the entire computer department at Sunnydale High could the Scoobies pull off something this elaborate. And Giles wouldn't help... She had a sudden mental image of Owen's head exploding like a hollowpoint smashed watermelon, and Aphrodesia flopping all loose and boneless across the table, and swallowed hard as hot saliva flooded her mouth.

No. Not a joke of any kind. So something _else_ had to be going on...

Cordelia abruptly remembered the tense feeling of the club, and the way that those pirates had acted along with some of the other costumed patrons, and Tor, and Heidi, and Jonathan. And she remembered the weird running kid monsters that didn't move like kids, or look like costumes. And the fires and running people and chasing monsters and chaos they'd seen on the way here.

No, something else _was_ going on. Something really, really bad and Hellmouthy. _Again_.

Xander, for once and for an amazing thing, was quiet, watching her and letting her work things out. Finally, she nodded.

"On track now?" Cordelia nodded, and Xander said, "Now, my name is not Xander. It is – "

"Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks, I know."

Xander nodded. "And I don't know who you think he was, but that thing that was coming for you was _not_ the person you knew any more. He wasn't even human, or really a him."

"What was he, then?" Cordelia could handle that. It wouldn't be the first time...

And then her world spun off the rails again, and went spiraling back off into Never-land. "Terminator. Precisely, a Calax International Model T-101L Series 850-I Infiltration, Search and Destroy Unit. A Larry Blaisdell pattern... MALCOLM began using units patterned after people from Sunnydale a number of years ago in an effort to infiltrate Tech-comm and assassinate the resistance leaders. People it thought might could reasonably be taken as survivors."

Cordelia's mouth fell open again, and then worked silently for several minutes. Finally, she managed. "A _robot_? You're trying to tell me that a freaking killer _robot_ from the _future_ is trying to kill me looking like Larry _Blaisdell?_"

"No ma'am. Not a robot. A cybernetic organism. Living tissue covering a titanium alloy and cerrometal endoskeleton, synthetic musculature, and artificial processing units with a positronic brain.

Cordelia shook her head. She'd been expecting something demonic and Hellmouthy, and she'd gotten... Star Trek and the Terminator. _Only_ Xander freaking Harris, she thought. Swear to God.

"Xander... " Cordelia had to pause, reboot her mind, and start again. "Xander. That was a _movie_. Decent movies, I saw them both on cable and I even _liked_ the one where Linda Hamilton went all buff and take charge gal like a real woman should, and I so can't _believe_ I'm admitting that, but still... "

"No ma'am. Terminators are very real. The death of your date and your friends was very real, Cordelia," he said, using her name for the first time. It almost sounded awkward coming out of his mouth, as if he had to force himself to do it. Like an unused reflex, or overriding an ingrained one or something.

"I know," she said, quietly. "I saw... gods, I was so terrified, Xander. Just... wait. Hicks? He was from Aliens. The Terminator guy was, uh, Kyle! Kyle something!" Cordelia grabbed at that like a lifeline. It was a hole in Xander's carefully built fantasy she'd gotten sucked into somehow.

He dashed that hope, right away. Oh well. It hadn't been _that_ much of a hope...

"Yes, ma'am. Reese, ma'am," Xander said, nodding. "Kyle Jordan Reese. We speculated – my partner and I – that he was one of the other operatives being prepped and trained for this mission. He may have already stepped back to try and reach Alexander Harris in case the T-101 was also sent by MALCOLM to try and remove both future leaders of the Resistance command at one shot."

"Uh... " Cordelia blinked. Hey, she kind of liked the sound of being a future leader... but, wait. "Dammit." Cordelia leaned back against the door. "You are so not going to try and tell me that I'm some great warrior woman and the mother of the future resistance leader, are you?" She was, she found, absolutely terrified of the answer...

"Yes, ma'am. Commander Morgan Chase H- " Xander frowned, and said, "Field Marshall and _General_ Morgan Chase, now... Your son, Morgan Chase, is the leader of Tech-comm and the North American resistance. Tech-Commander Kyle Jordan Reese is Alexander Harris' other son, and fourth in command, Tech-comm." He sighed, leaning his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes, and then said the words Cordelia had been dreading without realizing it...

"And if the T-101L kills you, and kills Alexander Harris, there _is_ no resistance and humanity is doomed."

Arrggh.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Downtown Sunnydale near East Ocean and North Hale Street, Evening __7:15__pm – _

Victor Creed was pissed. Not merely his usual state of simmering, suppressed rage, but _seriously_ pissed off, verging on maniacal rage.

He had _almost_ had that punk in the Danny Rand suit. The boy had been good, as good as the real Iron Fist or maybe even better, and he'd never ever let up on him long enough for the kid to get his bearings under him again after that first devastating strike. And then that damned negro frail had popped up outta nowhere and slashed him across the back.

And bought the bogus Iron Fist enough time to catch his wind and pull that mystical K'un-L'un crap out of somewhere. Just like the real thing.

Creed's injuries had already healed. He healed up _fast_ these days. Faster than before.

Now he was off to prowl around until he caught the scent of those people. And then he was gonna take his time and stalk them, and when he was ready, he was gonna strike before they even knew he was around. And after he ripped the Rand imitator from crotch to gullet, he was gonna take his own sweet time with the mulatto bitch. She was going to die slowly and in agony, and Sabretooth was gonna have his fun with her before he let her die.

Repeatedly, until she couldn't respond or even scream any more.

Then he'd hunt down the other two frails, including the fake Iron Fist's dark wench, and do the same with them.

But for now... Creed needed something to take the edge off. Or someone...

Sniffing the air as an errant breeze brought him something, he stopped, turning slowly. That would do nicely. He grinned around a mouthful of fangs, and set off at an easy lope, ignoring the chaos all around him.

There.

Heh. Another frail, this one a gorgeous, long legged blonde in a tiny, skimpy and low cut black dress that barely reached past the tops of her thighs, and was cut so low in front she was practically hanging out of it. College age, maybe in her early to mid twenties. _California_ babe, too. All long legs and dark even tan as far as the eye could see, pouty blowjob lips, and huge, gorgeous tits.

And a stupid pointy witch hat and a broom in one hand.

Creed let out a rippling snarl, and dropped to all fours, loping easily in on her in long, ground eating bounds. She saw him coming, of course. He meant for her to. He expected her to see him and scream. Half the fun... or more than half.

He hadn't expected her to scream, and then throw the stupid _broom_ between her legs, mutter something, and rise almost vertically into the air.

Sabretooth's eyes widened, but the momentary surprise didn't even slow him down. A fifteen foot near vertical leap closed a huge, clawed hand around one slim, tanned ankle and plucked her outta the sky before she could even _hope_ to rise far enough to escape.

He hit the ground lightly on the balls of his feet, whipping her around almost casually to slam onto her back on the pavement. Hard enough to stun and knock all the breath out of her, but not hard enough to kill or break any bones.

That was for later.

Sabretooth crouched over the hot looking blonde frail, his teeth bared in a slasher smile over her as she hitched and gasped for breath. A quick snag of a claw removed enough material to bare those tits to his view. _Real_ tits, not silicone. Nice. He rucked up the silly little skirt with his other hand and another quick snag removed any impediments that might get in the way of his fun.

Her eyes widened as she recovered enough to really register him and realize what was going on, and what was about to happen. Finally drawing in enough breath, she let it out in a harsh shriek, shoving at him and beating on him with her little tanned fists.

Creed slapped her lightly on one cheek with the tips of his fingers, just hard enough to draw three parallel lines of blood.

"Nice," he said, "Keep it up. I like fighters and screamers. _Especially_ screamers."

Her eyes went wide, and then even wider as she took him in. She let out another, harsher and even louder scream, turning her face away.

"You and me are gonna play a little game called cat and screamy toy," Creed said. "I'm gonna pounce and poke at you, and yer gonna lay and wriggle under me and scream."

She grabbed him by the collar and tried her damnedest to struggle out from under him. He snapped at her with his teeth, nipping the end of her chin and putting an end to _that_. She froze, panting and makin' harsh little no no shrieks and whimpers. If she had any more of whatever she'd used to make the broom levitate, she was now too terrified to think about using it...

"And hey, if you move and wriggle good enough," Creed said, "And scream _all_ the way through it except when your mouth is occupied... I _may_ even let you live."

Creed snarled and licked his tongue up along her throat and her face, enjoying her struggles under him and the taste of the blood from her chin. He reached down and opened enough of his suit to remove any impediments _he_ had. She screamed even louder, arching back under him as he positioned and then sheathed himself inside of her.

Nice. She _might_ even earn a reprieve from the fate that _Fist's_ frails were gonna get.

He didn't have anything _personal_ against this one.

She was just stress relief.

* * *

.


	18. Hostile Encounters -

**__****Warning:** This chapter contains scenes of non-consensual sex and violence.

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen: Hostile Encounters with Friendly (and Unfriendly) Hostiles…**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Pajaro Lane __and__ La Serena, Sunnydale, Evening 7:__15__pm – _

The other group spotted First Sergeant Benjy and her small detachment well before she hit the front edge of the Circle K parking lot. Which was ok, she wasn't trying to hide anything. Anyone who _didn't_ spot her by now was too oblivious to worry about. She was just walking diagonally across the intersection with a black clad pirate on her right, a Gangster Girl with a tommy gun on her far right, a serene and cold looking dark gowned and robed Faerie Princess on her left, and a Merry Woman beyond that carrying a bow with an arrow nocked. And she had a small glowing pixie on her left shoulder and a wrist rocket in her hands held aimed down at the ground, with a rifle and musket covering her from the edge of the parking lot and across the street.

Misty had proved to be an interestingly good shot with Calamity's rifle.

Mister Union General, Cat Woman, and Miss Captain America peeled off the convenience store wall or stood up off the front curb and headed toward her as they spotted them, with the other seven or so of their group forming a raggedy semi circle behind them.

Bev noted that the furry, spotted, black and gray clad cat-girl had vanished to somewhere while they were crossing the street and smiled coldly. Two could play that game...

When they got to about five yards away, Benjy called out, "That's close enough," and the other trio stopped. "Ok, three things, first off. One) I got three times as many troops scattered around, and if a fight breaks out, _you're_ not gonna be the ones standing after. Two) We're _not_ looking for trouble. We just wanna hit the Circle K. Don't give us none, and you won't get none."

Union General and Cat Woman were looking at her intently, examining her and her companions, Bev figured. After a moment, Captain America girl said, "You said three things?"

"Oh. And, three) I'm _real_ good with this," Beverly lifted the wrist rocket slightly, and smiled, "And if it _does_ go south, General Chicano and Miss Kitty there are gonna hit the ground out cold before anyone makes three steps."

Union General and Cat Woman blinked at her, and Miss America's eyes narrowed. "And what about me?"

Private Devila materialized right behind her, looping the sash from Private Lady d'Artagnan's swashbuckler outfit around her neck and said right in her ear, "You're just not gonna be any trouble at all, Spangles."

Union General Guy and Cat Woman both said, "Yikes!" and jumped about a foot and a half, and two away from Devila and Miss America, landing and looking shocked. First Sergeant Benjy grinned as everyone else on that side did similar, except for Miss America, who started to move abruptly, and then froze in place as Devila stuck a knee in her back and the sash went tight. Devila put the razor sharp prongs of her pitchfork under the other girl's chin, grinning with a mouthful of sharp teeth, and all of the others became statues.

Private Kitty Kat popped up from a pool of shadow by the gas pumps you wouldn't have thought would hide a _real_ cat, right behind Cat Woman, and said, "Boo!" and then stepped back, grinning like a maniac.

Cat Woman went "Yikes!" again, and landed about two feet away from her again, nearly knocking Union General over as she whirled on the smug looking Kitty Kat. Kat sneezed, and stepped back into the shadows and vanished again.

Bev repressed an impulse to laugh hysterically. Boy, that just _never_ got old...

"Watch for their kitty girl, 'Kat," Sergeant Benjy called out, getting a faint purring snicker from somewhere indeterminate. She looked at the Cat-Woman and General Union and said, "And thus endeth the lesson."

General Union looked hard at her, and then started again. His eyes narrowed, and he said, "Bev? Beverly _Sheridan_? Is that you?"

"Huh?" Beverly peered a bit more carefully at him. She'd _thought_ he looked kinda familiar. He was, uh... one of Amanda and Kit's friends, two of the soldiers in her troop. "Carlos Trejo? Or is it Union _General_ Trejo now?" And now that she thought about it... "And, uh, Dawn _Summers_?"

"No, no, it's just me, Chica," Carlos said, holding his hands up palms out. "And Dawn Light here is really Dawn, too. I, uh, can't vouch for anyone else being in their right minds, though." He looked uncertainly at where Kitty Kat had vanished from and at Devila. "You guys?"

"Heh. Me and Misty aren't transformed. Everyone else?" Bev laughed, and said, "What you see is what you get."

Carlos nodded, and said, "Ulp. I see... uh, you mind?" he gestured at Private Devila and looked nervously at the tommy gun and pistols. "We're _not_ hostile. Really."

Dawn took off her mask, smiling reassuringly and a bit sheepishly, and added, "And, boy are we glad to see at least one other normal kid."

"All right," Benjy said, waving Devila off, "Stand down for now, everyone. This means you too, Kat." Everyone else around Carlos' group relaxed a bit when Devila unlooped the sash and backed away. Kat reappeared and came back over to stand next to Private Cagney, still grinning.

"What are you _doing_ here, Bev?" Carlos asked.

"Benjy. _First Sergeant_ Benjy," Kat hissed, her ears laying back. "_Not_ Bev."

"Stand. _Down_. 'Kat," Benjy said, glaring at her. 'Kat subsided, but her ears were still down and her tail was lashing. Carlos and Dawn looked nervously at her. Bev turned back to them. "Trying to get everyone back to Base– uh, back to Sunnydale High," Beverly said. "And came here to do some shopping and maybe make a phone call. We're all tired, thirsty, and hungry. And need bathrooms."

"Well," Dawn said, shaking her head. "I've been trying to call mom or my sister, and no one's home. Lines _out_ of Sunnydale are down too, all of 'em. And the phone inside is out and the pay phone isn't working too well most times. So, good luck on that one." She frowned, and added, "And do you really have three times as many as us?"

First Sergeant Benjy grinned at the much taller girl, and gave out a loud whistle, then said to Private Pooka out of the corner of her mouth, "Go bring everyone in, Pook."

Private Pooka stood up on her shoulder, snapped off a salute, and said, "Aye aye Cap'n," and sped off. Dawn and Carlos watched her go, their mouths hanging open.

"Almost three times as many," Bev said, "And as you can see, we're all organized now."

"So, uh, why the hostile approach?"

"Because I'm tired of getting picked on by other transformed kids, and _we're_ not putting up with it any more," Sergeant Benjy told Carlos, her voice a bit cold. "I'm not losing or getting any more of my people hurt, and I'm tired of getting chased all over Sunnydale. Problem?"

"Nope. Makes sense to me," Dawn said, grinning. "And if you guys are _really_ hungry, there's a Burger Shack we passed about three blocks back up Pajaro, and a Pizza Barn across from it?"

"Kewl. I could do me some burgers and pizza," Bev said, her mouth suddenly watering. The rest of the people in her parley team nodded vigorously.

"With anchovies!" Private Kitty Kat said. Private Pooka looked entranced by the mention of pizza, staring at Dawn with her little mouth open and practically drooling.

"Eww. Only on yours." Carlos shook his head. "Dawn and I'll chip in on some pizza. We're all getting hungry too."

"Kewl."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening 7:15pm – _

Getting into Willow's house had been easier than Danny had feared it would be. Kendra had looked intently at the door lock, and then reached into her jacket and brought out a small case that proved to be lock picks. Just as she had knelt before the lock and brought the picks up, Aura had frowned, and reached over to try the knob. It opened.

Aura shrugged as Kendra raised an eyebrow. "Not much real crime in Sunnydale, just... weird ones," she had said. "Not many people lock their doors."

Now they were settled into Willow's living room with cold drinks from the refrigerator, after having made a quick search of the premises, calling out several times. True to advertisement, the home was empty. _They_ had locked both doors, front and back, and the one leading to the garage...

They had checked and then dressed their various wounds with a seriously well stocked first aid kit they'd found under the bathroom sink. Danny had raised an eyebrow at that, but Aura had just looked blank and shrugged. Kendra had been less badly hurt than the blood had suggested, as she herself had assessed. Aura was mostly just scratched, not too deeply, but she _had_ been bitten once. Nipped, actually, but still...

That worried Danny. He didn't know if a were bite from a transformed kid could transmit lycanthropy, but supposedly _real_ weres could. It worried Aura and Kendra as well, but nothing could be done for now other than clean and disinfect it –

"Crap," Aura said, looking up from the MP-5 she was examining. "I can't read this. It's in German or Dutch or something. Might as well be Greek... "

"Let me look," Kendra said, and went over to bend over the firearm where it was lying on the coffee table. After a few minutes study, she pointed and said, "I believe dat is 'safe', and dat is 'single', probably what you would call single fire or semi automatic. Leave the other settings alone."

"You read German?" Aura looked up at her, impressed. She studied the indicated settings, biting her lower lip pensively, and looking as though she was committing them to memory.

Kendra nodded. "And numerous other human languages both existing and dead. As well as several demonic ones."

"There are demonic languages?" Princess Cinderella, or Buffy, looked askance at her. The concept seemed to disturb her, as it did Danny.

"Many," Kendra said, nodding. She shrugged. "Many demons have their own cultures and civilizations on their home planes and hell worlds."

"I'll have to remember that if I ever go traveling," Danny said, making a face. "Are there guide books and Demon to English tourist dictionaries?" Aura laughed.

"Oddly enough, yes," Kendra said, smiling. "But I do not believe dat you would enjoy your travels." She stood, looking resolute, and stated, "Now I must go. Even more innocents are being harmed as long as this persists."

"Wait," Aura said. Kendra scowled at her, and Aura held up a hand. "Yeah, I know, but there's some things I need to show Danny, Will, and Princess Cindy here, and I need someone sane on hand if they throw a major wig on us."

"Hey!" Danny said, bemused and just a little bit insulted, "I'm a Champion of K'un-L'un, I don't _wig_."

"Yeah yeah... tell it to the Yankees," Aura said. "Come here. Take off that idiotic mask, and follow me."

"It is not idiotic," he said, but he pulled it off anyway and followed her as she led the way to a hall mirror. Aura pulled him by the arm to stand in front of it. He looked at her, saying, "I don't see what – " Aura sighed and yanked him around to face it.

"Oh. My," Danny said. He felt a sudden need to sit down heavily, and resisted it.

It was his height, and his build, but that was _not_ his face... The hair was brown and wavy, not blonde. The eyes were blue, not his own medium gray. And the face was a bit leaner, with more pronounced cheekbones, and a _lot_ younger than Daniel's own thirty plus years. Aura's age, as a matter of fact. Seventeen, maybe a young eighteen at the very outside.

He'd not only traveled the better part of a decade forward in time, but he'd landed in someone _else's_ body and in a _much_ different world...

"I'm sorry," Aura said, quietly. "But I had to prove it to you. Now you _see_ why I kept insisting you were my friend and old frenemy, Jesse?"

"Uh, yeah."

Warriors of K'un-L'un did _not_ 'wig'. But Daniel Rand, Iron Fist, now in a teenage body that was not his own, damned sure felt like trying one on for size.

"Lady Willow. You and Princess Cindy better come here and look too," Aura said. Willow drifted up, frowning, with Cinderella trailing along behind her. Kendra came up also, leaning in the doorway arch between the living room and the hall.

"It is Cinderella, _not_ 'Cindy', as I have stated," the Princess stated.

"Yeah yeah," Aura said. "Look in the damn mirror, both of you, and then follow me." She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, stepping aside as they both stepped up to the hallway mirror. Willow did so curiously, the Princess with obvious reluctance.

Willow gazed for a bit, reaching up to touch her face several times as her eyes widened, and then narrowed and she frowned. Princess Cinderella stared at her reflection, also touching her face wonderingly, and then scowled. "I do not understand this!" she said, stamping her foot. "I do not understand _any_ of this, and I do not believe that I want to! What vile enchantment is this that has ripped me from my ball, and hurled me centuries forward, and then into someone else's body?"

"I don't know," Aura said. "And I'm sorry. But you both _have_ to believe me now. _You_ are Buffy Summers, not Princess Cinderella. Cinderella is a character in a Fairy Tale. And _you_ are Willow Rosenberg, the daughter of the people who own this house, and Buffy's friend. Not Lady Willow of the Cliffs, or Lady Rowan, or anyone else."

Kendra frowned, and held up a hand. "Wait," she said. "Did you say Buffy _Summers_?"

Aura looked at her, lifting an eyebrow. "Yeah? Why?"

"Because dat is the name of de Slayer before me, de one who died so that I might be Called," Kendra said. "She died last May, at de hands, or rather, fangs, of de Master."

"Well, I am not dead, as you can see," Buffy said, folding her arms over her chest. "And I am certainly not this Buffy person, whoever she might be. I am merely a poor girl of good family who was following the advice of her Faerie Godmother and attempting to rise in station when all of... _this_ happened." She paused, and then her face crumpled, and she added, "And I want to go home and go to the ball and meet the Prince. I don't _want_ to _be_ here!"

Daniel put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest as she broke into tears. Aura, and even Kendra, looked disturbed and uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as Danny felt – comforting crying women was not his forte.

After a short while, Buffy/Cinderella pulled away from him, wiping at her eyes. She lifted her chin, glaring at Aura. "What else did you wish to show us?"

"Uh... ok, come with me." Aura led the way back into the living room, looking around, and then through the other archway into the den. Heading over to the fireplace, she looked at, and then pulled several framed pictures down from the mantle. "Ok, look. This is Xander, Jesse, and Willow at the beach, like, just before our Freshmen year, it looks like." She handed the picture to Danny, and scowled at another.

The one he was holding had a trio of slightly younger teenagers in bathing suits and wetsuits looking a lot like he and Willow did now. He, or rather Jesse, was holding a surf board upright with his left hand.

"Don't seem to see one with all three of you and Buffy," Aura said. "But this one has Buffy, Willow, and Xander from the Tenth Grade winter formal. And this one has Xander, Will, Buffy, that Ampata girl, and of all people, _Cordelia_ in it. I don't recognize the setting... Oh! Cultural Dance, maybe?" She passed them around, Willow looking curiously at all of them, and looking more and more disturbed. "And _this_ one has Xander, Willow, and Cordelia from the Spring Formal last year – Willow was helping Cordelia with the decoration committee, and then Kevin and the AV Club got killed by wild animals... "

"Hmm." Kendra took both of the ones with Xander and Buffy, including the ones with the girl Aura had named 'Cordelia', and examined them closely. "This is the boy dat I saw disappear, right before he," she jerked her head at Daniel, "Appeared in his place."

"Wait," Aura said. "Xander was with them?" She indicated Buffy and Lady Willow.

"And de other girl was wit dem a few times dat I saw," Kendra said, nodding. "Dey are all associates of de Watcher dat I told you about."

"_Cordelia?_" Aura seemed boggled by that.

"Why does that seem to surprise you?" Danny asked, suddenly curious. He felt himself starting to get his feet back under him a bit.

"Because Cordelia, Xander and Willow hate each other," Aura said. "Well, not really _hate_, maybe, in Xander's case. More like active dislike with a lot of UST and occasional smoochies. At least during late grade school, before high school. Then it became more active hate. But they still tend to play at fighting more than really ripping strips off of each other like Cordy and Willow did." She frowned, "And Cordelia _barely_ likes Buffy, if at all."

"UST?" Kendra frowned, looking puzzled.

"UST. It's a TLA, or three letter acronym for Unresolved Sexual Tension," Aura said, grinning. "They were bestest friends when we were real little kids. Even boyfriend and girlfriend in first and second grade. Willow was, like, _seriously_ jealous. It was _cute_." She sighed, and added, "And then Cordelia's mother made her quit hanging out with lesser mortals and stick with her own kind, and she started being really mean to you guys, to drive you off. And it stuck all these years."

"Except during late grade school, before high school," Danny said, starting to grin himself. Aura raised her eyebrows, and he said, "You said 'occasional smoochies at least during late grade school'," he explained.

"Uh huh," Aura nodded, grinning again. "We once locked the two of them in the closet during a game of truth and dare and wouldn't let them out until we heard smooching sounds. And then we opened the door finally and found 'em in a seriously heated clinch. Well, seriously heated for _thirteen_, anyway. I thought she was going to _kill_ all of us." Her grin widened, and she added, "And Xander used to _seriously_ piss Cordelia off by stealing kisses when she wasn't expecting it."

Danny laughed, shaking his head.

Aura frowned, and said, "Cordelia has been spending a lot of time in the Library with them off and on since all of that weird stuff toward the end of last year... "

Kendra scowled. "I do not understand. Buffy Summers," she waved her hand at the blonde, "_Cannot_ be alive. A Slayer is _only_ called when de previous Slayer is dead. Dat is de _way_ of things," she insisted.

"I can explain that," a voice said from the doorway between the den and the living room. "Xander Harris gave Buffy the breath of life in the Master's lair and brought her back from the dead."

All of them spun about to see a tall, dark haired man wearing black, in about his mid to late twenties leaning against the door frame, looking at all of them with a puzzled frown.

"_Vumpire_," Kendra snarled suddenly, reaching behind her back under her coat and coming up with a long pointed stick. She lunged at the dark haired man, and his eyes widened in sudden alarm.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: West Ocean Street near Warehouse District, Sunnydale, Evening 7:15pm – _

They'd had to detour twice enroute to the Bronze. Once around the scene of a fire, where West North was blocked by firetrucks and hoses. And again from Main Street/Wilkins Boulevard down and over from what seemed to be an eight car pile up blocking most of all lanes. Now they were headed down Ocean, and hoping that it wasn't blocked somewhere, also.

They were fast running out of east-west streets to try.

Lundy slowed for yet another group of what looked like costumed kids running across the street. Maybe kids, Stein thought, frowning. Some of those costumes sure were awful realistic these days. Amazing what they could do with latex and fake fur now. And amazing how much money California parents would blow on their little darlings.

He grinned at that thought. Not like he hadn't spoiled _his_ daughter all to death when he and his wife had still been together...

"Shit!" Lundy swore, almost putting the unmarked Crown Vic sideways as he stamped the brakes. Stein was tossed forward against the seat harness, and Lundy went ahead and turned into the skid, bringing the car to a stop at an angle.

Once he stopped jouncing, Stein could see why.

There were what looked like nearly a dozen late, late teenagers in pirate outfits leading, or herding a relatively large group of what looked like college kids along Ocean. Female college kids, mostly, and pretty scantily clad at that. Of course, a number of the female pirates were pretty scantily clad, too.

What was he just thinking about California parents and what they'd dress their kids as these days?

Lundy was frowning and rolling down his window, reaching up to stick the dome light on top. Stein took a closer look.

A lot of those scantily clad college age looking girls were wearing restraints, and looked terrified. And a lot of those swords the pirate kids were wearing looked real. All of the humor suddenly went out of things for Paul Stein.

He unbuckled and got out of the passenger side as Lundy unfolded from the driver's. Leaning against the door frame, Stein called out, his voice casual and easy, "Hey, kids. What all you got going on there?"

One of the college girls shot them a wide-eyed and grateful look and screamed, "Oh god! Officers! Help us, please!"

One of the pirates, a filthy and scruffy looking older teen with stained teeth, slapped her and then drew what looked like a percussion pistol from his belt. "Christ aw mighty! It's the gendarmerie. At them!"

All of the rest of the pirates, men and women alike, drew pistols and leveled them at the squad car.

"Shit!" Lundy swore, again, reaching into his coat.

It was always amazing just how fast things turned sideways on you, Stein always thought. One moment, routine, even if routine for a homicide cop was pretty grisly. Next, ten seconds of sheer terror and frantic, violent activity. He reached behind his hip, drawing his SIG P229 from the holster as Lundy unlimbered his own.

Say what you would about Mayor Wilkins, he didn't stint on seeing that the Department had ample funds for the latest and best equipment, including firearms. And say what you would about Chief Munroe, and gods knew Stein had said most of it, _he_ was scrupulous about seeing that the Mayor's directives were carried out.

Percussion pistols went off in clouds of white smoke. Repeatedly. Hey – weren't those supposed to be single shots? Heavy caliber balls slammed into the SPD car. None of them, luckily, hitting the two officers, or anywhere they could go through the thin metal and nail Stein or his partner.

Jeeze. He was starting to feel sympathetic for departments that went out on the line and bought armored scout cars for their units...

Stein leveled his SIG at the scrungy looking man – _man_, not a _kid_ if he's shooting a gun at you – with the eye-patch and squeezed off a quick controlled pair at the center of body mass. The pirate dressed teen went down, pistol falling from a slack hand. Lundy was firing as well over his door frame, and Stein picked up someone else aiming a gun his way and shot twice, and then again, finally seeing the gun wielder drop the piece and fall to its knees.

The rest of the brigands broke suddenly and ran, and it was only then when things went suddenly, awfully quiet, that Paul Stein realized the armed pirate he'd just shot twice in the chest and once in the abdomen, was a pretty teenage girl. She fell forward from her knees and onto her face, bleeding out into the street.

A number of the captives had scattered and run as well, a number of them girls in skimpy sailor costumes. One of the others, a red head in a tiny sequined clubbing dress, looked at them with her eyes real big and said, "Oh, thank God. Thank you, mister. Thank you."

"Yeah," Stein said, shaking his head and feeling sick. "No frigging problem, lady."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __West Laurel Avenue__, __Downtown __Sunnydale, Evening __7:15__pm – _

Oy, wot's this now? Spike folded his arms and leaned against a lamp post, eying the approaching group of people curiously.

After swinging down to Squisher's and gathering up a few more minions, around seven or so, Spike had headed his little band to the Slayer's house – to find no one at home. Damn. That was going to make it harder, but not completely impossible. Nor completely unexpected. He'd more than half expected her to be out gadding about on All Hallow's Eve.

He'd also gathered up a couple of handfuls of little monsters and demon things, about kid sized, and impressed them into service more or less willingly.

He hadn't had to kill more than a couple to awe them and get them to join up in the Slayer hunt.

There were also a couple of bigger monster things: one looking a bit like a werewolf from that Howling movie, only wearing baggy parachute cloth looking trousers and an odd vest, with some sort of sidearm thing. The other was dressed similarly, but was a man sized cat-wolf thing. They'd looked dubiously at him and his band, but no matter. They'd fallen in smartly enough when he promised them carnage and payment...

Mercenaries, obviously.

So far, none of his other minions had called to report Slayer sightings. No real surprise, that. Phones had been almost useless, or downright less than useless more often than not all night. He was apparently gonna have to do this the hard way. Oh well. Want anything done, do 'em yourself.

The new band of potential recruits were all dressed like pirates and brigands. About ten of them, with five men and six women. Fairly sharp looking birds, too, those. All of them wearing frilly, short little skirts and boots that exposed lots of long leg and charms to the eye. Stuff a real pirate wench would never have worn around male brigands... And all of them, including the women, carrying swords and percussion pistols. None of them looked older than eighteen, but no matter. Spike had seen men and women as young as twelve that were harder bitten and harder hearted than a lot of grown men.

Several of the women were leading a string of other gals, all of them wearing various sorts of even skimpier costumes. At least two dozen of them, with ropes around their wrists, and lashed together in a lead chain. All of these women – girls really, none more than college age – looked terrified, exhausted, and more than just a little bit well and thoroughly used.

Hard rode and put away still wet, so to speak. Spike grinned. Yup. Brigands, true to form.

All of the tied girls looked at him fearfully, with a few almost looking hopeful as well, like he might be a possible rescuer. Heh.

"And just who would you lot be, then," Spike said, unfolding from the lamp post. He raised an eyebrow, and waved the minions to stand away. For now.

The apparent leader, a bulky kid who couldn't have been more than eighteen, but already looked hard bitten and like a hardened killer, stepped forward. He was wearing a long, scarlet lined dark brown coat of a seventeenth century type, bloused leather trousers of the same color with high, fold over dark brown boots, and a brocaded vest. With a fancy three corner hat... and a sword in his left hand and a pistol in his right, 'natch. And two more pistols in his belt.

"I be Captain Darkheart, leader of this band of cutthroats and scurrilous thieves," he stated, glaring at Spike and his gang. "And ye would be?"

"William the Bloody, also called Spike," Spike said, amused. "And you may _just_ be the kind of men – and women – I've been looking for, there, Mate."

"And just what kind of men would that be, silver hair?" another pirate, this one wearing a similar outfit to the Captain, but in gray and dark, hunter green.

"Hard men," Spike said, grinning. That got a ragged, rough chorus of laughter from all of them, including the pirate gals.

"Well, we are certainly that, Leather Coat, as these can attest to ye," the Captain said, grinning back at him. "But we have business of our own about this place. Why should we be interested?"

"Well, I can promise you a lot more of what you've got there, Mate," Spike said, jerking his head at the captives. "Me, I'm only looking for one particular one. And booty, of course."

"Hah. Well, that certainly interests," Captain Darkheart said. "And what kind of shares will ye be a wantin'?"

Spike shrugged. "Like I said, I want _one_ girl, Mate, that I'm looking for. A special _one_. And whatever my men pick up, 'natch. Otherwise? Don't care. Help me find mine, and help yourself to anything else."

"Hah!" The captain looked about his crew, getting nods or shrugs, and looked back at him. "Done, then. And we'll be off after, and well met."

"Done." Spike looked at the captives. "Mind if me and mine sample the wares a bit? I'm a bit peckish."

"Naw. Feel free," the Captain said, waving his sword at the girls. "_We_ certainly have." That got another chorus of nasty laughs from the brigands.

"Much obliged," Spike gave him a courteous nod, and stepped up to the lines, looking the selection over. So, what suited his taste tonight, hmm? He turned to his minions, "Step up, fellows. Serve yourself, it seems."

Spike picked out a big tittied blonde in a little naughty Catholic school girl outfit that barely covered anything, and untied her wrists. "Oh, thank you mister, these men are... " she started to babble, and he backhanded her across the mouth.

"Oh, belt up," Spike said, cheerfully. He dragged her by the wrist to a nearby parked car, tore away the little top, and fondled her tits roughly, and then ran his hand down her body and up her skirt between her legs, working his fingers up inside her as she shrieked. The pirates had already gotten rid of her underwear, assuming she'd been wearing any... Whirling her around, he slammed her on her stomach across the trunk, bent over, and after a moment, moved in on her roughly from behind. "I'm not saving you, and when I want some lip, I'll shove you onto your knees, bitch. Matter of fact... "

Spike pulled away, and yanked the blonde back and pushed her down, forcing his way past her lips and ignoring her beating on his hips and pitiful attempts to shove him away. After he figured he'd had some fun and driven the point home, he hauled her away and up again, throwing her back on the car trunk and moved back in. She gasped, and began to squirm and struggle, weeping and whimpering.

Just the way he liked them: hot, tight, and still struggling.

It was only Angelus who liked his girls to lay still...

Behind him and off to the sides, he could hear similar sounds as his minions – all of them male, this time – did the same.

Nearing the end of the matter, Spike reached forward, and grabbed a fistful of blonde hair, jerking the girl upright against him as he ground his hips against her. She shrieked in pain, and he vamped out, sinking his teeth into her jugular as he finished up inside.

"Nice," he said. "Bit 'o sex, violence, and dessert, all in one, _always_ hits the spot." Spike threw the empty aside and fastened himself up, turning back to the rest. "Wot?"

He noticed the pirates, especially the women, were all looking at him askance, with various expressions of shock, horror, and dismay. "Wot, then?" He let his demon face drop away, and grinned, wiping his mouth as his minions finished up their treats in similar fashion.

"What _are_ you?" one of the female pirates said, her voice shaky and quavering. She had her pistol aimed at him, as did several 'o her mates – he saw that all of the women brigands had bunched up. Smart, for all the good it might do them.

Then again, some of those swords were awful sharp looking, and the people holding them looked skilled. And a heavy caliber pistol _hurt_, even if it couldn't kill a vampire.

"Vampire, love," Spike said, easily. "But no worries – won't bother any of you lot," he added. For now, he thought.

The Pirate Captain looked at the dead women with an expression of bland indifference, and then raised an eyebrow at Spike. "Hell of a waste of perfectly luscious sportin' wenches there, mate."

"Bloody hell, you've got spares, man," Spike said. "And there's plenty more where those came from." Which was true: between the two colleges, the beaches, and the schools, Sunnydale had an ample supply of comely birds of screwing – or drinking – age.

"There _is_ that, true enough," the brigand acknowledged. "And at that, 'twas kinder probably than what's in store for them on ship, I'd say."

Spike raised his eyebrows at that, and shrugged. "Well, you're certainly hard, all right," he said and the Pirate smirked. "Whatever you say. Shall we be off?"

"Well, as long as we have yer word there'll be none 'o that with mine," the Captain said, grinning, "Let's. But – catch your _own_ meals next time. The Admiral has _these_ marked for return."

"Sure enough." Spike thought for a moment. He recalled seeing posters for some Halloween do down at the Mall, it seemed. As likely a place as any: he knew the Slayer bint loved to hang out there. "And I know _just_ the place for more of these."

Darkheart, and an apt name, given how he'd not blinked an eye at the rape, draining, and deaths of the captive girls, detailed a couple three of his women to lead the captives back to the ship while they went on. You'd almost think he didn't trust the vampire's word... Spike chuckled. Smart man. The pirate gals led off with dispatch, hastily one might almost say, and the captives hurried off willingly, like they were perfectly happy to go along now.

Fancy that.

They left the empties in the street as they started to head off. Several of the little demons and monsters dropped off, staying to fill their bellies on the discards.

The two hairy ones, the cat thing and the wolf thing, backed away as Spike and his crew, now larger by eight, began to leave.

"Wot?" Spike said, turning back to them, irritated.

"We didn't sign on for _this_," the cat thing snarled, waving his clawed paw at the bodies and the feeding monsters. His growly voice sounded disgusted. His companion nodded, and they both started backing away, covering Spike and the rest with those odd looking guns.

"Right then. Off with you if you don't have the stomach for it," Spike said, shrugging. "Plenty more where you came from, as well."

He turned and waved to his band of fiends and cutthroats and headed off in search of a Slayer.

* * *

.


	19. Panthers and Devils and Vikings, oh my!

**Chapter Eighteen: Panthers and Devils and Vikings, oh my**!

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening 7:__35__pm – _

Angel had discovered, thankfully, that the younger being he had staked and killed wasn't a human, after all. Not a vampire, either, though – or at least not any vampire he was familiar with. Some sort of demon or demon hybrid, perhaps? The blood smelled off somehow, for one thing...

It certainly wasn't dressed like your typical vampire. It was wearing black trousers, high black boots, a white, lace collared and ruffled shirt with an ascot, and a scarlet, embroidered waistcoat. It also had a sweeping, high collared, and crimson lined black cloak that draped down to the knees. For all of him, it looked like some teenager's interpretation of a Hammer Films vampire, as played by Christopher Lee. _Looked_ like a teenager as well, a skinny dark blonde haired teen with a Dracula fixation.

But it had vampire _teeth_, long and sharp upper and lower incisors that would do a local desert coyote proud. And eyes with red irises. And the body was _already_ cold, even only moments after staking it...

Angel had shrugged, finally, giving up on identifying it. He did know that he couldn't leave it in Buffy's kitchen. Buffy's mother would, as Buffy would say, have a freak. And he couldn't just dump it in the nearby alley or someone's yard where it could be found. Sighing, he had found an upstairs rug to roll the body up in, and, distastefully, began the unpleasant task of cleaning up the red but odd smelling blood. He did a quick and efficient job of that...

In the old days, he'd had lots of practice, when he had bothered. Angelus hadn't liked having a home or lair that looked and smelled like an abattoir.

A torture chamber, maybe...

While rolling up the corpse for transport, he'd felt something in a back pocket and pulled out a wallet. Curious, he'd opened it to find a California I.D. card issued to one Holden Webster, aged sixteen. Huh. Maybe a vampire variant of some kind, then? Obviously a human who'd been transformed. Angel had heard of stranger things, even if he'd never seen one before.

It hadn't taken long to hoist the body and take it for a short drive to where he could drop it down a manhole into one of Sunnydale's voluminous sewer tunnels. If they found it palatable, the things down there would make short work of it.

Afterward, he'd had a dilemma: where to go next? He had a choice between the Library at school, the mall where Buffy liked to hang out with her friends, or Willow's home, which was nearby. After a moment's brooding on it, he opted for Willow's home first, as it was closest, and then the Library to speak to Giles.

After letting himself in, it hadn't taken but a moment to work his way downstairs and locate the sounds of teenaged voices. He smiled, hearing and identifying Buffy's and Willow's voices even before he got to the den. Damn, but he was good.

At the door, he recognized Buffy and Willow, and even the one dusky girl – a friend of Cordelia's he'd seen once or twice. Upon listening to the discussion for a minute, and puzzling at the oddly dressed teen in the green and gold and the cappuccino colored mulatto girl with the odd, musical accent, she gave him an obvious cue. Clearing his throat, he'd said, "I can explain that: Xander Harris gave Buffy the breath of life in the Master's lair and brought her back from the dead."

He hadn't expected the mulatto girl to draw a stake, snarl "_Vumpire!_" and lunge for him. He hadn't expected her to be so _fast_, either...

As fast as she was, the kid in the green and gold was just as fast, or almost so. He lunged out of his seat a bare moment's beat after her and clamped a hand down around her stake wrist as Angel stepped back hastily, holding his hands palm out in the age old sign of non aggression. He wasn't as strong, though: she slung him around in front of her between herself and Angel as he desperately threw his full weight and strength into trying to slow down that arm.

Buffy screamed, her hands uncharacteristically to her mouth, as the male teen yelled, "Kendra! Wait!"

The dusky girl, whatever her name was, had grabbed up a _sub-machinegun_ of all things and was covering him with it, looking half scared and half wary. But thoroughly dangerous, nonetheless.

Then again, people with guns _always_ looked dangerous. _Especially_ the scared ones.

* * *

"Let go, you fool!" Kendra said, yanking at the wrist holding the, uh, pointy stick. Danny held on with his full strength, already knowing it wasn't enough. God's teeth, but this girl was strong.

"Wait!" Aura yelled, "I know him. He's a friend of Cordelia's... " she paused, looking at the stranger warily, "I think."

"I am!" the stranger said, holding his hands up and out, palms forward. "Uh, kinda. I'm not hostile, honest!"

Kendra finally quit struggling against his grip – afraid she was going to hurt him, probably, Danny thought – and alternated between glaring at the stranger and Danny. Buffy quit screaming, finally.

"You're, uh, Angus, right?" Aura said. "I saw you talking to Cordy at the Bronze earlier and asked about you."

"Let go of me, please," Kendra said, gritting it out between her teeth. Danny eyed her warily, and then let go, slowly. She didn't shove him out of the way and attack immediately, but she didn't relax, either.

Then again, if this Angus guy at his back really was a vampire, he didn't blame her. Danny suddenly wondered if stopping her had been such a good idea.

Reflex. Some things you just couldn't help.

"Uh, Angel, actually," the man said. Turning slightly, Danny saw him give Aura a hesitant smile. "It's Angel and you're... "

"Aura," Aura said, not lowering the Heckler & Koch.

"Wait, you are _Angelus?_" Kendra said, incredulously. She snarled to Danny, "Get out of my way," as the newly christened Angel stepped even further back, hastily.

"Wait_!_" Danny said, "You can see he's not trying to attack anyone. He's even going out of his _way_ not to be threatening."

"Uh, Angel, not Angelus," Angel said. "I haven't gone by Angelus in a century. I haven't _been_ Angelus in a century," he added quickly.

"Are you really a vampire?" Aura said, still eying him suspiciously.

"Yes, but I'm an uh, I'm not a bad vampire," Angel said.

"Dere _are_ no good vumpires," Kendra said. She glared at Danny from the corner of her eye, still watching Angel, "_Dis_ is how de get you: they will pretend, to lull you in, and _den_ strike."

"I'm not lulling, dammit!" Angel said. He looked at her desperately. "I'm not! Uh, Buffy, Willow, _tell_ her," he said, throwing an almost pleading glance at Princess Buffy.

"I am quite certain that I do not know you, sir," Buffy said. "And if you are a vampire, I most definitely do not wish to know you." She had one of the tachis held a bit awkwardly in both of her hands, blade up between herself and the doorway.

"Uh... " Angel stared at her. "Willow?" he shook his head and looked at ghost girl.

"I am afraid that I don't know you, either," Willow said. "But you _are_ a vampire. I can tell." She frowned, and added, "I think."

"They believe they're all other people," Aura said. "It's a thing." She lowered the weapon slightly, finally.

"We _are_ other people," Danny said, shooting a glare at Aura again. He looked at Kendra, and said, carefully, "Will you _please_ not attack the vampire just for now, until we can get this sorted out? _Unless_ he tries to bite someone."

Kendra scowled, but she lowered the stake just a tiny bit. She glared at Angel, and said, "All right, for the moment. But I am watching you."

Aura's lips were twitching at the corners. She looked at Angel as Danny slowly stepped away from the agitated Kendra, and said, "All right, handsome. If you can think of _anything_ to say to defuse this, best start talking before we sic Kendra the Warrior Queen on ya." She grinned and raised the muzzle of the HK. "And I plug ya."

"Be careful with that, please," Angel said, eying the sub-machinegun warily.

"Oh, I _am_ being careful. I'm using it to watch you with."

Danny grinned, unable to help it. "She's a little bit tired of getting attacked all the time. It's making her twitchy, stranger."

Angel nodded, smiling hesitantly again. He nodded to Aura, and said, "After everything I've seen tonight, I'm not sure I blame you. It's a madhouse out there," he sighed.

Daniel paused, thinking, and then gave Angel a suspicious look, "How did you get in anyway? We locked the doors this time."

"Willow always leaves her bedroom window open upstairs," Angel said, shrugging. "I climbed up the trellis and let myself in."

"Wait," Kendra said. "You invited a _vumpire_ into your _home_?" She gave Willow an incredulous look.

Lady Willow shrugged, and said, "I didn't do it."

"We're friends, kind of. Anyway," Angel shook his head and went on, "Ok. I am _Angel_, a vampire. I _was_ Angelus, a really deadly vampire. Once. Then I was cursed and given back my soul, and I wasn't able to be evil, or a killer any longer." He looked at Kendra and her stake, curiously. "And, who are you, anyway?"

"I am Kendra, de Vampire Slayer," Kendra said, still glaring at him.

"Uh," Angel's mouth dropped open, and he looked from her to Buffy and back again. "Uh... but, Buffy... "

"I know," Kendra said, giving Angel the first not completely hostile look of the evening. "I am puzzled as well by dis. You did say that Xander Harris brought Buffy Summers back to life somehow when de Master drained her? Dis Xander is a sorcerer, den?"

"He, uh, didn't drain her, he drowned her," Angel said. "And Xander gave her CPR – medically revived her."

"Ah. I do know what CPR is, tank you," Kendra nodded. "De analysis of the Council's reports dat me Watcher made indicated dat Alexander Harris and _yourself_ killed de Master, Heinrich Nest."

"No. Although it came close to that," Angel said, shaking his head. "Look, can I lower my hands now?"

Kendra nodded. "Go ahead. Dey will not stop me from staking you, anyway."

Angel sighed, and lowered his hands, sticking them in his pants pockets. "I won't attack anyone in this room, I swear it to you. Anyway, Nest drank from her and it freed him from his confinement, and then he rose. Xander – Alexander – forced, uh, convinced, uh, well, _actually_, he forced me at cross point to lead him to the Master's lair."

Aura started making a choking sound, and Danny looked at her and realized she was doing her best to stifle laughter. "_Xander_ did that? Oh, god, that is _so_ cool."

"I didn't think so at the time, but it really kind of was," Angel said, smiling. "And Xander usually annoys the hell out of me. But I was in a black funk because the Prophecy said Buffy was to die at the Master's hands, and it couldn't be stopped... anyway, we found her in a pool of water, and he revived her at the very last moment, almost. Pretty heroic, actually – and _don't_ tell him I said that, ok? Afterward, she went up and killed Nest while Giles, Cordelia, and Ms. Calendar were battling his minions in the library."

"_Cordelia?_" Aura's eyes went wide. "_Wait_, when _was_ this? Is _that_ anything to do with how Cordelia's _car_ got into the hallway of the _school_?"

Angel nodded, and Aura shook her head. "Gods, you _think_ you _know_ your friends, and then suddenly, pow! You find out they're leading secret lives as _vampire_ hunters, jeeze."

"I know dat she associates with de friends of de Watcher," Kendra said, shrugging, "If she is de pretty dark haired girl I have seen at de library at de school house?"

Aura nodded, looking a bit numb.

"She's... " Angel frowned, "Well, _actually_, Cordelia is a bit of an abrasive pain. But she was pretty heroic herself that night, I understand."

"Damn." Aura shook her head and snickered. "But I see you _do_ know Cordelia."

Angel nodded, then looked at Danny curiously. "And who are you? Some friend of Aura's? You look vaguely familiar, but I can't place you." Aura started making those suppressed laughter choking noises again, and Danny glared at her as Angel gave her a curious look.

"I'm Daniel Rand, Iron Fist," Danny said, sighing. He threw Aura a significant look, waiting. She didn't – she just gave him a 'by all means' gesture and he sighed again. "But apparently, I either _look_ just like this Jesse McNally person, or else I'm wearing his body for the moment."

Angel gave him a blank look, and said, "Ok. I don't guess I know you." Danny felt relieved – at last, _someone_ in this town that didn't think he was Jesse. "Uh, possession of some kind?" Angel looked uncertainly at Buffy, still holding the sword, and the silently frowning Willow.

Kendra started to speak, and Aura cut across her, and said, "Ok. This is what I'm thinking happened, based on what Kendra there's said, and what Danny told us. Buffy and Willow here dressed up as Princess Cinderella and The Lady of Kingman's Bluff for the night. Xander went out as something else... " Aura frowned.

"He was dressed as a soldier of some type," Kendra supplied, "But I did not recognize de service or de army."

"Right. And then something happened, and Buffy and Willow became who they dressed as, and Xander disappeared in a big flash of light, and Jesse – who's been _dead_ for almost a _year__ – _appeared in Xander's place with Daniel Rand inside of him."

"Wait," Angel said, snapping his fingers. "You're Buffy, Willow, and Xander's friend who disappeared, right? That's why you look vaguely familiar."

"Apparently," Danny said, dryly, "I didn't disappear, I died. At least, according to what this Cordelia girl told Aura."

"Ah." Angel said, nodding. "Ok, now I am really confused."

Kendra rolled her eyes. "Someone cast a major ritual enchantment, and it would seem dat it turned everyone into de costumes dat de were wearing. I am trying to get away from dese... " she gestured, "People so dat I can determine who, and put an end to it." She sighed and added, "But I am not having very much success at dat."

Aura grinned. "And we love you too, Kendra."

Kendra sighed. "It is not dat. I find all of you to be... interesting and brave companions. It is an... unusual and uncomfortable experience for me, as de Slayer works alone, always. But I have a task to complete, and a mission, and I am not doing it."

"Have you tried checking with Giles?" Angel said, looking at her curiously. "Buffy's Watcher?"

"It is on my very short list of things to do next," Kendra said. "Wait, you _know_ de Watcher? And he has not slain you?"

"We're... not exactly friends, but... Rupert Giles and I are not enemies. He accepts that I'm different, and that I don't mean Buffy and her friends any harm."

Kendra frowned at him, but lowered her stake even more.

"I have a question," Willow said, speaking for one of the first times since Angel's entry, "I know what a vampire is, and you do feel quite different from others of your kind I have encountered. But, what is a Slayer? And what, exactly, is a Watcher?"

"I'm kinda wondering about all of that myself," Aura said.

Angel stared at them, and Kendra shrugged. Angel finally opened his mouth to say something –

– And there were the loud, flat roars of numerous shots and the windows to the den shattered and fell inward.

Danny grabbed Kendra around the waist and threw her to the floor, throwing himself on top of her and covering her with his own body. Aura dropped to the floor also, and Angel flung himself at Buffy, slapping the sword aside and tackling her to the floor while yelling, "Get down!"

A loud, harsh, male voice from outside in the night yelled out, "All right in there. Send out the women, and none of ye'll needs be harmed. Otherwise, harm it'll be an' be no mistaking that."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Downtown Sunnydale, Evening, some time earlier – _

Captain Ezekiel Hook was most displeased.

The encounter with those damnable guttersnipes almost an hour ago had lost him one of his best and toughest men. Additionally, it had cost him the delectable feline wench they'd acquired on their way up from the nautical bar – as well as the two delightfully luscious wenches they'd snagged for sportin' purposes. He'd not be mentioning that part – the Admiral would not be thrilled at losin' that medical wench. As well as, several of the others were now wounded, to boot. Not badly, but one had a bullet wound, and Captain Starling would never be pretty for the wenches again: that feline horror in a child's body had savaged his face right smartly, and the other, the wee devil gal, had done similar to Pirate Jefferies.

On top of which, Hook was _convinced_ that that little she devil of a King's Gal, the tiny mercenary in the guard uniform with the huge gray eyes and quivering lower lip, had _deliberately_ led those hairy, howling beast things to ambush them.

Pirate lass Dareena had been carried away screaming by one of the slavering beasts, and Hook doubted it was for any sport that she'd _enjoy_. A pity, that, she'd been a delectable bit of fluff, and good with a sword, too.

And to boot, the damnable guard urchin had gotten away clean and Scot-free, with her troop of tiny mercenaries, that was the _galling_ thing about it all, _damn_ her tiny little arse.

Even one of the two they'd captured for the scullery had been lost in the melee, never to be seen again. The other, the little frock coated King's Gal, had gone back to the Bloodfin with newer captives and booty – at least Dread Pirate Mitchell had salvaged _that_ much from the debacle.

He'd say that _that_ entire tale wouldn't be going in any report to Captain Jack and the Admiral, but he doubted it'd go that way. None of the men, not even Joy, could resist the tale of how Ezekiel Hook had been set up and bested by a troop of small mercenaries that barely came past his waist...

Ah well. At least he'd enjoyed the charms of both the curvaceous bunny girl and the scantily clad medic before they'd been slain.

Nothing for it but to plow on. They'd replaced the captives already, a couple of times over and more besides, and counted up boo-koo plunder so far, since then. He'd already sent two groups of captives back with Barnacle Bill Youngley and his gang, and several bags of loot and jewelry, some of it most wondrous indeed.

This odd township seemed to have more luscious lassies in it to be made sport and captives of than any he could recall having seen, anywhere. It was like they imported them for the takin', almost.

And as well, they had replaced the feline warrior and scout with another, aways up the roads. This one was female as well, slinky and sweetly curved, covered in short, lustrous, velvety black fur and wearing a scanty little thing of panther fur and black leather, and most inclined to sport with anyone interested. Fine sporting, too, as long as ye minded the claws and the nipping teeth. The lashing tail took a bit of getting used to as well, but no worries.

The young demon gal was even better. All curves like a storm tossed sea, hourglass figure, breasts like soft coconuts, and a tiny scrap of red nothing covering them. She had tawny red gold skin and long red gold hair as well, with tiny horns, and lips that begged to be wrapped around a man's ramrod. Mind the teeth, though... And she was, pardon the expression, hell on wheels with that pitchfork in the fights they'd had.

Neither could he fault the Viking lass that had joined up with them. She was nearly as tall as he was, all blonde hair and curves and acres of tanned skin – well displayed by the abbreviated leather 'armour' she was wearing – and lissome as all get out. She, too, was a hellacious fighter with that wicked double bladed axe and broadsword of hers.

Damned if the Admiral wouldn't overlook the bit with the medic and the affray with the tiny King's Guardsmen just for bringing these three into the crew. Just so long as he didn't get no ideas about adding them to _his_ harem. Ezekiel Hook had eyes on that himself.

The two scouts, the devil gal and the cat-girl, popped up from the shadows, drawing a yelp and a start from a couple of the men and lasses.

"Prey up ahead, Cap'n," the cat girl purred. She held up three fingers, frowned at them, and held up one more. "This many. A male and four females."

"Huh." Hook frowned, sounded promising, but... paid to be cautious now. "Descriptions?"

Devil Gal shrugged, smiling nastily. "Man in some tight suit, looks like a pansy. And the three girls look fun – like they'd scream nicely. One's a Princess, I think!" she added, sounding excited by the prospect. "The _other_ girl is a warrior, looks like."

Heh. Could be interesting at that. Princesses and noblewomen always commanded a high ransom. "Lead on, carefully then, and we'll be havin' a look."

Hook paused, waving the lads to fall back into the shadows as the two scouts indicated they were near, and then he spotted the small group of figures ahead of them. They eased up in the cover of shadows, and Ezekiel Hook eyed the little quintet warily. Hmm. As described. The band of ruffians trailed along silently and watched as the group was jumped by the three black clad swordsmen, and he revised his estimates a bit.

He doubted the Nancy-boy in the green tights would be much problem. Excellent scrapper, but a volley of pistol fire would take the fight out of even the best brawler... And the one gal was a Princess most certainly, and completely worthless in a fight – definitely a high ransom there if her father could be notified. The redhead was pale and looked sickly, but the two Negresses were sweetly curved. The one was a bonny fighter, and she'd be a good addition to Bloodfin's crew once she was broken in properly.

He'd be most happy to let the Admiral take on that enviable task, Hook thought, grinning.

"Follow them and stay out of sight," Hook told his two scouts. "They seem purposeful, like they be headed somewhere. Let us be seeing where they end up."

Both gals nodded, and vanished into the night.

Ezekiel Hook leaned against the pole of one of the township's numerous gaslights, and when she came up, reached out the arm of his hook hand and pulled the tall Viking lass into his side after she'd finished checking her weapons. She gave him a lascivious smile, and wriggled her hip into his.

They didn't share a language in common, but they managed to communicate nicely, anyway, he mused.

"All right, lads and lasses," he said, running his other hand over the warrior gal's breasts, down along her curves, and up under the ridiculous little flap of leather armour skirting to fondle her. "This be a might trickier than some others, but we have the strength to take this group. Take the women alive, exceptin' the sickly one."

All of them chuckled and nodded.

Pirate Morgan gave him covert glares when she thought he wasn't watching. Apparently, she hadn't taken well to the bit of sportin' earlier. Pirate Elise did also, that lush mouth all pouting. He'd grabbed her and taken use of those lips, and that saucy arse, to relieve his frustrations after the fray with the hairy monster things. She also hadn't taken well to it, it seemed.

A pity that, but they'd both get used to it. He had plans for both of them back aboard ship that _didn't_ involve them being part of the crew for much longer. There would be wrist chains, mats, and the rings on his cabin wall and floor for that...

Once they weighed anchor at midnight, it would be a long, long time in strange waters before they saw landfall at the shores of _this_ place again. A year pleasantly spent breakin' them to coupling eagerly... he seriously doubted he'd get bored enough to throw them to the main crew on the cannon decks.

The scouts came back and reported in, and led them to a dwelling on a long, winding paved street. As they watched from the bushes across the road, one of the strange conveyances of this land came up and halted, and another Nancy-boy, this one in a long coat with pomaded hair, left it and climbed up the side to enter via a window sash.

Oh well, the more the merrier. He doubted _that_ one would be much problem, either.

Ezekiel waited for a short time, long enough for the group inside to get settled in, and then -

"All right, lads and lassies," Captain Ezekiel Hook growled out. "Give 'em a volley through yon winders, and mind ye – aim _high_. No need to harm the sportin' wenches." There was a chorus of nasty chuckles and guffaws from the crew, even Morgan and Elise.

They didn't seem to mind seeing _other_ wenches sported with...

Gunfire crashed and roared and the windows shattered, and then Hook called out to the people inside.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening 7:__3__0ish__ – _

Kendra cursed in French and shoved him off of her. Daniel let her and rolled away, not that he probably could have stopped her if he'd wanted to – the girl was _strong_. She raised her head, just slightly, and yelled out, "We are not sending anyone out to you."

"Your loss, lass," the voice called back. "Then it's killin' yer menfolk we'll be about, and takin' ye and the other lassies prisoner for sportin' and fer trade."

"Oh my gods!" Aura said, her voice sounding shocked. "I know that voice! That's Chad Everette, he's Captain of our JV football team."

Angel threw a sharp glance back her way, after throwing a hasty look over a window sill and ducking back as more shots crashed through. Buffy threw her hands over her head and screamed.

They were shooting high, Danny noticed. Probably didn't want to hit the trade goods.

"Are you sure?" Angel asked.

"Oh, hell yes," Aura said, her eyes wide. "I'd know that voice anywhere. He's the biggest wannabe pussy hound in the school, but so far, none of the cheerleaders or drill team have let him past first base. Cordelia punched him out once when we were kids."

"Don't tell me, let me guess: you dated him once," Danny said, grinning back at her. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, yeah... " Aura said, clutching her Heckler & Koch. "Oh, _hell__ – _he and all the jocks went in for a pirate theme for costumes. And Joy and a _lot_ of the cheerleaders and drill team – "

Another volley crashed through the windows and walls. Buffy shrieked again, and Kendra gritted her teeth, clutching her sword and dagger and looking frustrated.

"Damn," Danny said, cursing for one of the rare times that he allowed himself to, and Kendra shot him a curious look. So did Angel. "That means we can't kill or hurt any of them badly. They may _all_ be high school kids in costume."

Kendra nodded grimly. "Victims and innocents. Transformed by this spell."

Angel sighed. "Those innocents have swords and real guns, and there's a lot of them."

"I cannot allow you to kill, Vumpire," Kendra said, looking at him evenly. "De are innocents, even though they attack us."

"Wasn't suggesting that," Angel said, scowling. "Just... pointing out the obvious, I guess. I don't kill innocents, either. Or humans."

"Well, we are going to have to do something," Danny said. "And it'll involve fighting."

"Oh god, Willow's parents are gonna throw a _complete_ wiggins," Aura said, crawling on her stomach up to the window next to Angel's. "And they _hate_ guns." She raised the sub-machine gun above the sill and triggered off a long burst, and yelled, "You'll never take us alive, copper!"

"Copper?" Angel said, raising his eyebrows.

"Bite me," Aura said. "All I could think of. No, wait, don't _bite_ me – "

"I _know_ what you meant," Angel said, smiling.

"Be having it that way if you want to," the pirate called back. "There's plenty of sportin' wenches out and about. But we'll be havin' the Princess past yer bodies, then.'

Aura triggered off another long burst and yelled, "Come get some then!"

Almost as in answer, just after she'd yanked the Heckler & Koch back down and rolled onto her back again, a trio of figures launched themselves in through the windows in a sudden whirlwind of violence. Aura screamed, covering her head with the gun, and said, "Fuck! I didn't _mean_ it!"

* * *

It was almost like fighting Creed again, Danny thought. Except that Creed was more than half again the feral cat girl's height, probably more than thrice her mass, and he didn't have to worry about not hurting _Sabretooth_...

And then Danny Rand submerged again, and there was only Iron Fist, Champion of K'un-L'un.

Buffy had screamed "Demons!" as the three figures landed, and Daniel thought that she might have a point this time. All three were human, or at least humanoid. All three were built like Playboy Bunnies or lingerie models. One _looked_ like a demon, all tawny red-gold skin, small red horns, lashing spade tipped tail, and sharp teeth – but she was wearing a skimpy, clingy red thing that looked like some lingerie designer's idea of a dress. Another was tall and curvaceous, wearing a clinging, low cut corset thing of soft doeskin and metal plate that looked like armor on some fantasy book cover, with fur and leather wrappings on her shins and forearms, and a furry horned helmet. She also had a wicked double headed axe in one hand and a viking style broadsword in the other...

The third was either a humanoid feline, or some sort of feline mutant, Daniel had thought. She was also short and curvy, like a pornographer's dream crossed with the fantasy of some furry artist. Covered in smooth, slinky black fur with a long mane of black hair, she had claws, bobcat like teeth, a lashing fluffy tail, and a fluffy fringe of fur at shins and forearms. The body hugging leather and black furred garment she wore hid very little if anything of the body beneath it.

And she was _fast_: a whirling spitting clawing dervish. Fortunately, she was also unskilled, almost completely, at least by Danny's standards, and that was all that kept him alive in the first three seconds.

Kendra snarled and muttered something vicious under her breath that sounded like Latin, and grimly set about defending herself against that axe and sword with her short sword and dagger. She blocked, ducked, dodged, and parried, and interspersed the defenses with kicks and elbow strikes that never quite landed.

Angel was doing the same as Danny: blocking and dodging for all he was worth, and barely, if at all, keeping ahead of the demon girl's claws. And he was fast, also. As fast as Kendra, or as the cat-girl that Danny was engaged with.

And then he had no senses or attention at all to spare, and Iron Fist found himself in a deadly battle for his life that he wondered if he could survive for the _second_ time that night.

This time, not just because the cat-girl was as fast and vicious as Sabretooth, if not nearly as strong – but because he couldn't afford to hurt her badly or risk killing her.

Iron Fist was a hero, and a defender and protector of innocents. He did _not_ take innocent lives. Not _ever_.

Luckily, he quickly found out that she was resilient enough that he didn't have to _completely_ pull his blows.

Aura watched the fights with wide eyes and open mouthed shock, and then threw a fast look over the sill. "Crap," she said. "Oh _no_ you don't," she growled out, and raised the HK and triggered several bursts out in long sweeps of the barrel. She paused, and then continued, with a bit more space between bursts. There were yells and screams from outside.

Iron Fist finally got a decent opening and put a solid side kick in through the whirl of claws, knocking the feline warrioress back and against the wall next to Aura's window. Aura yelled, "Fuck!" and rolled away from the impact as cat-girl came off the cat girl shaped impression in the sheet rock in a rush of spitting fury.

Iron Fist had had a brief moment to glance at his companions. Kendra was defending herself well, but unable to make headway and get in any telling blows against her opponent. Even as he took in a fleeting impression, Fist could see that the Viking girl was as fast and as skilled with sword and axe as the mocha skinned fighter was with her weapons.

And had greater reach.

Angel wasn't faring much better. Iron Fist was glad to note that he also had taken the idea of not killing their opponents to heart, and was fighting defensively. But he was unable to get in a telling blow to end the fight either...

Then feline girl was back in the fray, and Iron Fist had no more time.

Again, luckily, long on speed and ferocity, short on skill. The cat girl's repertoire seemed limited to pounce, lunge, and slash with the clawed hands and feet. Unfortunately, she was also good enough at _that_ to render her lack of skill almost moot...

Almost. Daniel Rand, Iron Fist, was the greatest martial artist in several generations of warriors of K'un-L'un, and quite possibly, the greatest _his_ Earth and time had ever seen. Only Shang-Chi and possibly a couple of others could even match him. Iron Fist had skill to spare, and years of experience in combat with the deadliest warriors his world could boast.

Fist ducked slightly, turned a bit, and snatched one wrist of the leaping feline girl, spun, and threw her over his back to slam down on her back into the floor of the den. Hard. She bounced – and bounced back _up_ again, sadly. He did the most ungentlemanly thing and front snap kicked her between the legs – a painful and debilitating strike for women as it was for men – brought his knee up under her chin as she doubled, and came around with a back fist to the temple as she straightened again, squalling.

She ducked.

Iron Fist turned the momentum and motion of the missed strike into a full spin as his fist skimmed her furry ears, and caught her by an outstretched wrist as he came back around. He turned within its radius again, and threw her over his back once more with every single ounce of strength and skill he possessed –

– straight out through the broken window.

All hundred and twenty or so pounds of her smacked into the lawn some ten feet beyond the front porch. Daniel Rand didn't have Sabretooth's superhuman strength, or Kendra's, but he had over two decades of conditioning, exercise, and weights in K'un-L'un's mystical atmosphere and was infused with the power of the molten heart of Shou-Lao to boot. He was _much_ stronger than a normal human being of his size and weight. As strong or stronger than an Olympic weight lifter, at least...

Cat girl bounced four times like a skipping stone, and ended up rolling another ten feet.

Taking a moment to throw another fast glance at his companions and assess, he saw that Angel had found his adversary to be as resilient as he seemed to be, and was trading blows with her, not pulling them nearly as much. Also not taking her down, though, and demon girl was grinning like she was having the time of her little five foot four inch life.

Kendra was still locked in stalemate, unable to really make headway without killing or crippling her opponent. She had taken at least two cuts, but fortunately they didn't seem to be more than skin deep slashes. One had left the side of her long coat flapping even as he looked.

"Hey! Dat is me _coat_!" Kendra said, jumping back and swearing violently. "Dat is me _only_ coat!"

And Aura tossed a quick glance out the window, and stepped forward and smacked the Viking girl across the back of the head with the Heckler and Koch and with everything she had.

There was a metallic _whang! _and the Viking's eyes rolled back up into her head and she crumpled like a collapsing tent.

"Bitch." Aura said, breathing heavily.

Iron Fist swallowed a grin – no time – and gathered himself and drew upon his internal energies as he watched and judged Angel's opponent. Nodding to himself, he shouted, "Angel! Throw her here!"

Angel didn't hesitate. He took a nasty slash of claw that seemed to mostly get leather coat sleeve, grabbed the demon girl by both forearms, and whirled and threw her at Iron Fist.

And Iron Fist hit her with only a fraction of the power of the Iron Fist that gave him his name. It _still_ left a glowing nimbus around his right hand, and struck the demon girl like unto a thing of mystical iron.

She went sailing out after the cat girl, tumbling through the air and landing with an audible _whomp!_ on the lawn on the other side of the street.

"Impressive," Angel said, his eyes wide. "Remind me not to annoy you."

"Crap," Aura said, breathing heavily. "I'm never gonna say _that_ again!"

"Be careful what you ask for," Kendra said, examining the rent in her coat with a disgusted expression.

Another ragged volley of gunfire came through the windows and walls, lower this time, and they all hit the deck again.

"I am _so_ getting tired of that," Aura said, wide eyed.

Willow looked at her, looked at the Viking girl, and then frowned. "Oh, bother," she said. "Enough."

The temperature in the room almost instantly dropped to freezing as she began to glow a pale white. She turned and strode out of the front of the room. _Through_ the wall...

A rime of frost began building on what glass was left in the window frames as, outside, a howling wind began to blow.

* * *

.


	20. The Echoes of Unquiet Conversations -

**Chapter Nineteen: The Echoes of Unquiet Conversations...**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Burger Shack at Pajaro Lane and __Osage__ Street, Sunnydale, Evening 7:__2__5__pm – _

"Ack!" the Burger Shack counter girl looked up and jumped when she saw Private Pooka hovering by First Sergeant Benjy's left shoulder. "You know you have a giant _bug_ flying by your head?"

"It's ok," Bev said, staring at her in near incredulity. Bug? "She's an, uh, pet bug."

"Yeah," Corporal Bucky said, grinning. "She's an, uh, Amazonian Faerie Moth. Like, really _expensive_ at the pet store." Bev looked sidelong at him, impressed by the quick witted fiction.

"We don't allow bugs in here!" the girl frowned at them, "The Health Department and the manager would have a fit!"

"Or she _could_ be a Rodent of Unusual Size," Private Princess Buttercup said.

"At least she's not in the Bog of Unutterable Stench," Carlos said.

"But I think we fell in the Labyrinth and didn't come out again," Misty said, snickering.

Private Princess Buttercup frowned and said, "Do you suppose that we should make this churlish serving wench mostly dead, then? _She_ might be a goblin minion."

"On no, we _really_ don't allow _rats_ in here!" the girl said, looking even more alarmed. "Not even flying ones!"

"She is _not_ a rat!" Benjy gave Buttercup a quelling look, which rolled right off, naturally. "Look, uh," Benjy peered at her name tag, "Kimmie, she _stays_ with me. She won't be any problems, honest." Obligingly, Private Pooka zipped over and sat on Benjy's shoulder, and gave the girl her best innocent look. _After_ sticking her tongue out at counter girl Kimmie, natch...

"And we're about to spend a lot of money in here," Carlos said. "Which should count for something. But I'm sure Carl Jr.'s will be happy to feed us."

"Well... can't you put her on a leash or something?"

"No!" a solid chorus of about a dozen or so voices said, including Private Pooka's, and Private Kat's. Private Princess Wicked gave the girl her best and haughtiest glare.

"_We_ don't put members of the Army of the Resistance on _leashes_, peon," she said. "_We_ are not _barbarians_."

"Well, uh... " Kimmie looked completely nonplussed, and maybe a little intimidated by the twenty-six odd glares she was getting. "Ok, but make sure she stays, like, right there with you, ok?"

First Sergeant Benjy nodded, grinning at her. Eying the menu board, she started placing orders as Dawn came back from across the street at the Pizza Barn.

"Ok, they're having a buy one, get the next smaller size free special," Dawn said. "So I got four extra large and four large with various toppings. Plus a separate Extra-large with anchovies, pineapple, jalapenos, and Canadian bacon for me and Kitty Kat and, uh, Devila. And a small personal supreme with pixy dust for Private Pooka."

Considering that when they'd seen the Pizza Barn sign across the road, Private Pooka had practically gone nuts doing loops and spirals and whirls and other aerobatics, all the while shouting "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" at the top of her tiny lungs, that was a good thing. Benjy had practically had to sit on her to restrain her from doing a one pixy air raid on the place...

Private Kat nodded vigorously and said, "Yippie. And, kewl."

"Good. Private Kitty's about ready to hunt down and eat six year olds about now. Raw."

"Can't have that."

"How much we owe for our share of pizza?" Bev asked, looking at Dawn.

Dawn waved a hand negligently. "Nadda. Mom gave me a debit card for emergencies. _This_ counts as an emergency." Dawn had paid for their sodas at the Circle-K, too...

"Kewl. Thanks and tell her I'll pay her back," Bev said. Dawn shook her head, but didn't argue.

After waiting a bit, they got their orders and headed back to the back of the restaurant to occupy tables. They were gonna need a lot of them. Kimmie had spent their entire wait with her mouth partly open, watching Benjy, Kat, Wicked, and Devila converse with the diminutive Pooka, shaking her head periodically and looking like she wanted to bang it on the counter.

Sheesh. She could deal with a red skinned devil girl with real horns and tail, and a cat dressed girl – _two_ of them – with obviously mobile ears and twitching tails, but a little faerie freaked her out? Go fig.

First Sergeant Benjy headed toward a big corner booth with plenty of room. "Ok, command teams and Misty, my booth. That means you, Dawn, and Miss America with mine, Sav, and my scouts," she said, looking at Carlos.

"It's _Captain_," Miss America said.

Benjy looked at her and nodded. "Of course it is," Benjy said. "Captain."

Carlos looked at Dawn, shrugged, and said, "Outta snag Zane, uh, Private Joe, too. He's one of our leaders." Benjy blinked. _That_ was little Billy Zane?

She nodded. Before sliding in to take a seat, she turned to address her people. "Aw right, listen up. Pizza is coming, so we'll fill up on that, mostly. 'Til then, pig out on fries and onion rings and whatever. Burgers, we'll take with for rations later if we get hungry – they're portable and they keep for awhile." There was a ragged chorus of 'Ma'am, yes, ma'am,' from her group as Carlos and Dawn watched, slightly boggled. "You're exempt, 'Kat," Benjy said to her scout.

"Kewl. What's an exempt?" Kitty Kat asked, her ears twitching.

"Means _you_ can eat your burger, Private Fuzzy Butt," Bev told her. "Got you an extra for later." Kat grinned and rubbed Beverly with her shoulder before sliding into the booth with her tray. Bucky slid in next to Miss, er, _Captain_ America. Of course he did...

"Man oh man," Carlos said. "Can't believe that you guys are like... "

"What?"

"Almost like a real little army," Dawn said. "With orders and yes ma'ams and all that stuff."

Bev looked at her blandly, chewing on some fries. "We _are_ a real army. Now. We're the First Foragers of the Sunnydale Irregulars."

Carlos and Dawn blinked at her, looked at each other and shrugged. "Oh-kay... " Carlos said, slowly. "So, Beverly... " he began.

Private Kitty Kat looked at him and hissed like a steam leak, her ears laying back and her pupils dilating. "It's _First Sergeant Benjy_. Not _Beverly_."

Carlos looked at her, taken aback, and started to open his mouth with a heated look on his face. Dawn nudged him and he suddenly noticed that he was getting really hostile glares from every single kid in Beverly's group, including Private Pooka. He gulped.

"Stand down, 'Kat," Bev said, eating her fries and looking unconcerned. "Dawn and Carlo can call me Bev, or Beverly if they want." She glanced up, and raised her voice slightly, "But for everyone _else_, excepting Misty, it's Benjy, Sergeant, First Sergeant, or Sarge. Got it? If you _can't_ remember that, it's 'yes ma'am, how high, ma'am?'" She grinned.

A chorus of "Yes'm!"'s came back from around the dining area, with a lot of good humored laughter.

Carlos let out a low whistle, and said, wonderingly, "Mano. You people are _intense_." Cap America looked around at Bev's troop, and gave her a suddenly impressed and approving look.

"Been through a lot," Bev said, going back to wolfing down her fries. "Tech-sergeant Hicks _gave_ me that rank. And I've _earned_ it. My people are a bit touchy on it."

"And because _First Sergeant_ Beverly, with only one real bad note, got us all the way here and we only lost one person, even with giant hairy monsters attacking us and _real_ pirates trying to kidnap us and make slaves of us," Misty said, "And we _so_ kicked the asses of the _next_ monsters that tried it with her figuring out how." Misty folded her arms, and glared, "So, yeah: we take the First Sergeant Benjy stuff a bit seriously."

"So I see," Dawn said. She suddenly gave Bev a sharp look, snapping her fingers. "You were with Xander's group? Where is he?: What happened to him? Why isn't he _with_ you?"

"Uh... " Beverly looked up again, surprised at the sudden intensity. "You know Tech-sergeant Xander?"

"He's my sister's best friend! Well, best _male_ friend, anyway. Willow is her _best_ friend, otherwise," Dawn said, leaning forward.

"Ah. Well, you're probably not gonna like this, then," Beverly said, sighing and shaking her head. In between bites, she filled in Dawn, Carlos, and the others on what had happened since leaving the school up to where Xander had vanished and how, and the green and gold sorcerer appeared in his place and they ran. "So... " Bev finished, "We waited until we were pretty sure he wasn't gonna reappear and come lookin' for us, and then decided to head back to base on our own. And here we are."

"Wow. My sister is gonna be freaked."

The pizzas arrived while Dawn was saying that, and she got up to go pay for them. The others from Bev's team began filling Carlos and his staff in on what happened after. When Dawn came heading back with a stack of pizza boxes to set on an empty nearby table, Bev raised her voice again slightly to cut over the din. "Private Corporal Hotstuff, Private General Sherman, Private First Class Presley, and Private Admiral Mayhem: divvy it up. You guys know what us here at this table ordered."

"Yes ma'am. Can do."

Dawn brought a pizza box back with her, and a much smaller one. She opened the smaller one and set it in the center.

Private Pooka's eyes got really huge, and she said, "PIZZA! Yippee!" and dove in. Literally. She practically vanished into the personal pizza, and then it started to vanish into her. Kitty Kat stopped chewing and looked on in sheer awe as the entire personal pizza disappeared into a pixie smaller than it was.

There came a deep and really loud, "BURP!" from the box, and Pooka's reappeared standing up. "'Scuze me!"

Everyone at the table and all of the nearby ones stared at her. Dawn closed her mouth and said, "It's ok. You're excused."

Pooka zipped over and came to attention. "Ma'am! Permission to go for a scout, ma'am?"

"Uh... " Bev shook her head, once again feeling an urge to bang it on something hard. "Sure, why not. But remember Pooka Rule One, right? And it is... ?"

"Sigh." Pook rolled her eyes. "No flying higher than five feet max. Unless there's a 'mergency or I have to go high to scout, then make sure there's a roof or something solid no more than four feet under me. Phooey. Can I go now?"

"Cause going splat will ruin your day," Kitty Kat said, solemnly. "And the first sergeant will be really mad."

"Sure, why not, kiddo," Bev said. "Can you get out?"

"No probs!" Pooka zipped off, and a minute later there was a shriek from the cash register, and another shriek and a loud metallic crash as she zipped out through the drive through window, leaving a glowing, sparkling contrail behind.

"Uh... wow." Dawn said, blinking. She looked at the now empty pizza box. "That was like watching a shark feeding frenzy on Discovery."

"Yeah, wasn't it?" Bev snickered. "Man, wonder where it all goes?"

"Not worried about her?" Dawn asked, tearing into a slice.

"Man. Anything that can _catch_ Pook, I doan wanna _know_ about," Bev said, grinning. She looked at the two of them. "Ok, so, why are you guys alone?"

"Ah." Carlos shrugged, and looked depressed. "We were all at the Mall, and then... "

Dawn came in smoothly as he trailed off, patting him on the shoulder. "Carlos' dad turned from a pretend Santa's Elf into a real one, twitched his nose, and rose up through the skylight of the mall and flew off in a sleigh with eight reindeer," she said.

Beverly blinked at her, her mouth falling open. "Of course he did."

"Swear to God," Carlos said, putting his hand over his heart. "My lips to God's ears."

"And Becky's big sister turned into a great big Sexy Cowardly Lioness, looked at all of us, screamed, and ran off and we never saw her again," Dawn said.

"Ok, you've darned near got our story beat," Misty said.

"Not quite," Carlos said. "You guys have glowing sorcerers, and giant hairy monsters."

"And all of the rest of us other than what you see here turned into little monsters and either ran off or attacked us," Dawn said. "So we managed to fight ourselves free, and left the Mall because the whole mall was going bad in a big way. Some of the cops and a lot of the _security_ guards were acting... off, even. And here _we_ are, now."

"We picked up some of the others with us after we hit the parking lot, like Cap here," Carlos said, picking up another slice of pizza.

"Huh." Cops too? Wunnerful. Benjy shook her head, and looked around, studying the other group. There were a few more than they'd counted during their scout and walk up to parley. A few of Carlos and Dawn's people had been inside the convenience store, not making it out until the confrontation was just over. Short confrontation. "Ok," she said, "So. We're heading back to Base at Sunnydale High. You guys with us? Or you wanna strike out on your own for home?"

Carlos and Dawn had a quick, low voiced conference with Captain America and G.I. Joe Zane.

While they were doing that, Bev continued to munch pizza and study the others. Boy, it felt good to wrap around some food.

Ok, so... not counting Dawn and Carlo, because they were normal kids, the others had twelve kids. Fourteen with, with twelve transformers...

There was a Captain America girl with shield; a black girl in a Ghost-busters outfit with a proton pack and PKE meter that looked as real as Calamity's rifle; a G.I. Joe; two military girls; a cat girl with a jaguar spotted gray and black dress and furry tights, soft gray very short fur all over, and a thick heavy fringe of spotted gray and white fur on the shins, forearms, and head and ears, with a long flowing mane of it down the back in place of hair. There was a girl in a Blue-gray Lone Ranger dress outfit with a pair of sixguns; a girl who looked like the guy from Green Hornet, uh, Kato and another in a TV Robin outfit; a girl in a somber looking Red Riding Hood outfit that was currently getting along like a house afire with Princess Wicked; a rather mean looking Alice from Wonderland, also getting along nicely with Wicked; an Indiana Jones boy; and a girl in a stylized and elegant outfit that looked like a Mad Hatter girl.

Uh... Bev looked harder at that one and the Alice. Hmm. Her brother played a game for awhile called, uh, American McGee's Alice. Crap. And this girl looked a lot like that one. Hrmm.

Wow. Thirty nine. No, forty plus counting her scouts. If she remembered any of her war stuff she'd read, that was a fully staffed _platoon_, roughly... Bev started making plans in her head while the quartet finished their conference.

"We've decided we want to stick with you, First Sergeant," Captain America said. 'Kat swiveled her ear back from their direction and nodded vigorously. "We think it gives us the best chance of making it home." Cap frowned, and added, "I will, of course, place myself under your command, despite the disparity in ranks."

"Of course you will." Bev nodded and said, "Kewl." She finished her bite of pizza, and went on, "Just curiosity, but why is she speaking for you two?" she asked, looking at Dawn and Carlos.

"Because... " Carlos shrugged. "She has the best combat sense and expertise."

"Ah. Of course she does," Bev said. Cap flushed, and glared at her along with G.I. Joe. Bev shrugged, and added, holding up a hand, "Sorry. That was tacky. And mean."

"Apology accepted," Cap said, smiling. Bev nodded.

"Ok. Can you fill me in on what your people can do?" Beverly listened as they outlined everyone's abilities as known, or as displayed so far, and said, "Ok. This is what I want to do... " she began to outline her ideas.

When she was done, Carlos looked at Dawn, frowned, and said, "Uh. Why should _we_ split up among _your_ teams?"

"Can always make it back on your own," Kitty Kat said, licking her whiskers.

Bev shrugged, and nodded. "I wouldn't of put it like that, but... in a nutshell."

"Your way or the highway?" Dawn scowled.

"Naw. Nothing like that," Bev said. "But... ok, here's _my_ reasoning. Merging in Privates Bombshell, Ranger, and Sergeant Rocky of your guys brings Third up, and gives Private Sergeant Cookie two additional military types to make up for Private Misty being a normal. No offense."

"None taken," Misty said, smiling. "Normal mundane and proud of it, ma'am!"

Beverly grinned. "And if Cap there is anything like the real thing," Cap looked a bit affronted by the real thing comment, but wah, "No offense, then you already have a combat heavy. And Kato and Cheshire, uh, Chessie? get split because the scouts are a unit of their own, and I'm not bending on that. Gives us two more scouts for drag in addition to our points and Pooka roving. You also have Private Spengler's, uh, thingy... "

"Proton pack," Dawn said, smiling.

"Of course it is," Bev said, "Which makes you pretty firepower heavy if it works."

"It works. believe me." Carlos said.

"Kewl," Bev said, impressed. Really cool... "And you have two other military types still, plus Joe there. Two heavy squads of nine and ten, respectively, and one of eight that're blooded, and yours of eleven that's military heavy but experience light. I'd put one of my experienced non coms with yours, but I can't spare any. You'll have to learn on the fly."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Good reasoning," she said, almost grudgingly.

"Very logical, Captain," Saavik said, nodding. "I approve."

Dawn looked at her askance, an eyebrow raised. She and Carlo had also been shooting covert glances at Lady Robin, Treasure, and Lady d'Artagnan; having had a hard time dealing with the fact that their friends Kit and Amanda had transformed and didn't recognize them. You'd think a real Vulcan-Romulan cross after that and a tiny pixie girl wouldn't be disconcerting, but apparently not.

Bev grinned at her. "Of course you do."

"Hrrm. Malice, uh, Private Malice, and Private Chessie, and Private Hattie Black like to stick together."

"Huh. I'd like to say, they can deal, but I'm not gonna," Bev said. "Instead, I'll say: I'm open to better suggestions if you have any."

Dawn, Carlos, Joe, and Cap went into a huddle again, their heads together and their voices low. Beverly waited it out until they looked up.

"Cap says we should do it your way because you're more practically experienced on this ground, and your strategy is sound," Dawn said. Carlos looked disgruntled, but shrugged.

Cap nodded. "Tech-sergeant Xander obviously did a good job with your training."

"I watched lots of war movies when I was a kid," Bev said, deadpan. Dawn choked and started laughing, as did Misty. "I will get us back, _all_ of us," she said, looking Carlos in the eye. She spit in her hand and stuck it across the table. "I swear it." He made a face, but did the same and shook on it.

"Gonna hold you to that, Chica," Carlos said. "You better not get me killed, 'cause believe me: you do not want an annoying Chicano ghost haunting you. We play really loud salsa music when you're trying to sleep, and peek on you in the bathroom and read your diary."

"Wow." Bev's eyes widened. "Now _that's_ what I call _incentive!_" Everyone at their table broke up laughing, except for Bev, who just watched and grinned.

Carlos gave Pvt Kitty Kat a speculative glance, looked at First Sergeant Benjy, finished chewing his bite of burger, and said, "Y'know, we're not complete losers. We weren't really expecting you guys to come on so strong like that. Fact, we really weren't expecting hostility at all."

Dawn nodded, and said, "We probably should have, seeing everything we've been through so far, but... " she shrugged.

"I think that if we'd been expecting a fight," Carlos continued, "Our Cheshire Cat coulda taken your Private Kitty Kat."

Everyone at the table from Benjy's group stopped chewing and stared at him, except for Benjy, who continued eating and shrugged. Private Kat looked over to the other table at the other black and gray furred and spotted cat girl with the bushy tail and fluffy fringed forearms and calves. Her ears went forward, and she said something that sounded suspiciously like a cross between a sneeze, and, "Bullshit!"

Benjy grinned into her slice of pizza. Finishing it, she shrugged again, reaching for her second fries and starting to unwrap them. "Naw. You weren't _expecting_ an ambush, and you shoulda been. You're not taking it seriously enough yet," Benjy said, sounding for all the world like a veteran, and not an eleven year old girl. Idly, she wondered just when it was when she started to _feel_ like a veteran and not an eleven year old... _probably_ when she'd looked down on four shredded and bled out bodies on a Sunnydale street. She shrugged, and continued, "On top of that, 'Kat's blooded, and you guys really aren't." She grinned again, and said, "No contest."

Kitty Kat nodded enthusiastically, grinning maliciously at Carlos.

"I don't think that's really fair... " Carlos began...

"Fair's got nuthin' to do with it," Benjy said. She gave 'Kat a pointed look and added, "And we are _not_ gonna have a parking lot ring fight to see who's got the toughest cat scout, understood?"

Kitty Kat gave her a bland and innocent look, and then her ears went back as Benjy continued to stare at her. "Fine," she said, finally. "I won't beat up the fluffy cat." Under her breath she muttered, "Can't eat the pixy, can't beat up the fluffy cat... "

Benjy swallowed a grin, and shook her head, looking at Carlos and Dawn, rolling her eyes. "See what you started?"

"Oh, come on," Carlos said, shaking his head. "Chessie was invisible. No _way_ you knew she was there."

'Kat rolled her eyes. "She was on _this_ paw trying to circle First Sergeant Benjy," 'Kat raised her left hand. When Carlos and Dawn stared at her, she shook her head, and said, "Got a nose and ears and whiskers, sheesh. Knew where fluffy kitty was the whole time."

"Give it up, Carlo," Dawn said, laughing.

"Don't try this at home, _we're_ professionals," Sergeant Benjy said, laughing for one of the few times since they'd lost Private Calamity.

"All right," Benjy said, wolfing down the last of her second fries. She raised her voice slightly, and said, "Get ready to pack up and _move_, people. Troops, we are lea-_ving!_" She paused, and added, "Bathroom breaks in rotation. Assemble in the parking lot after for briefings."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Alleyway off of Carpinteria Avenue near Waterfront, Sunnydale, Evening 7:__3__5pm – _

"OK." Cordelia sighed, huffing and blowing stray stands of hair from her eyes. "_IF_. And I can not emphasize the 'if' hard enough, so I won't even try, _if_ I'm this great warrior girl and mother of the future resistance leaders along with Xander, then who's the father? And the mother of Xander's kid, this Kyle guy?"

She was starting to be fascinated by the depth of the delusion here despite herself. Whatever was causing this, it was seriously, like, _thorough_.

"I - " Xander-Hicks scowled, and shook his head. "I can't tell you that. My orders don't allow it."

"Of course they don't," Cordelia said. "Why should anything _ever_ be _easy?_"

"Ma'am, uh, Cordelia," Xander turned a seriously earnest look on her. It would have worked better if his eyes were still puppy-dog brown, rather than icy blue. "I can't, because we do not want to prejudice you for or against anyone. Either of you. No one wants to risk the fate of the entire world that way, me included."

"What, afraid I'd sleep with them and then have an abortion?" Cordelia asked, raising her eyebrows. Xander, or Hicks, or whoever gave her a look that was so... so shocked, and utterly appalled, that she relented, and said, "Like I so _would_. Please. That's just _not_ my thing."

"Sorry, ma'am," Xander said, ducking his head and looking sheepish in a gesture that was so... so Xander, that she wondered again for a minute if it was a practical joke again. No. Xander could not in a million years have faked that shocked and utterly flabbergasted look. "It's just... we're so few that no one even jokes about abortions any more. Or thinks about them."

"Sorry," Cordelia muttered, looking away. No, dammit. She was not going to feel bad. She forced herself to look back. "Ok, so, how about: _when_ were they born? Can you tell me _that?_"

Xander was quiet for so long she thought he wasn't going to respond, and then he shrugged and said, "Morgan Chase-H..." he paused, swallowing, "Morgan Chase was fifteen when humanity ended. Kyle Jordan Reese was thirteen. Morgan Chase-H... he became the leader of Tech-Comm at twenty-five years of age."

"And that was?" Cordelia stared him down, and when he hesitated, she said, "Oh, come _on_. It _can't_ hurt to tell me when everyone is supposed to _die_, can it? I mean, you'd _like_ us to _stop_ the apocalypse, right? It's what we _do_." What _Buffy_ does, anyway, but she so wasn't gonna _say_ that.

He hesitated again, and then said, "Judgment Day occurred in 2013 AD. In late May. When MALCOLM managed to recreate ADAM from the old Initiative files and records and opened the Cleveland Hellmouth."

Cordelia opened her mouth, then closed it and blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. Xander wasn't following what she vaguely remembered of the Terminator script... "And, huh? There's a Hellmouth in _Cleveland? _But... "

Xander nodded. "It's inactive, now. But after _this_ one is closed in 2004, it becomes _very_ active."

"Wow." Cordelia said, quietly. They closed the Hellmouth? A part of her went 'Yes!' and jumped up and down pumping its fist in the air. "How... no, never mind. You probably won't tell me how we did it."

Xander shook his head. "Can't, actually," he looked uncomfortable, "It's such a closely guarded bit of intel that it's not even in the histories. Only Resistance Command knows that." Pausing, he scowled and added, "As I was told, the same rituals could be reversed to opposite effect, and we still have people even in our time who're insane enough to want to bring about an Apocalypse. And there's more than one Hellmouth, or Hell's Maw as the Company calls them, for them to use."

Which meant: _them_, dammit. Her and Xander and their kids. And, more than one Hellmouth? Eww.

"Huh. And what about you? When were _you_ born?" Cordelia asked.

"Ah. That one is easy. This year. Last month, actually. September seventeenth nineteen hundred and ninety-seven." Xander sighed. "In fact, right now, baby me and my parents are probably living happily oblivious in San Diego."

"Wow. So, you were what, sixteen when it all hit the fan? That must have sucked."

"It did," Xander said simply. "Badly."

Sigh. Time to get serious. "Ok, look," Cordelia said. "I'm going to do something here, probably something idiotic, and then you're going to _freak_, and _after_ that," she took a deep breath, "_After_ that you're gonna tell me the whole no doubt lunatic story of how you got here and why and how this Terminator thing came about. Right?"

Xander looked at her warily. Quickly, before he could react, Cordelia reached up and turned on the dome light. "Hey!" Xander said, and reached for the switch. Cordelia slapped his hand away, hard. "No. Look in the mirror, dumb ass. _Look_ at it!" She grabbed the rear view and turned it to face him, and grabbed his chin and tried to wrench it around. It didn't budge, dammit.

Almost reluctantly, though, Xander's eyes and then his head went to the rear view. He stared at it.

Cordelia took advantage of the opportunity, while the light was on, to study his eyes intently. Wow. No freaking contacts. They really were almost ice blue. She sighed. There goes one more peg in her theory that it was all a delusion.

After a long minute or so, Xander reached up and flipped off the switch, leaning his head back against the headrest with a sigh, his eyes closed. Xander-_Hicks_. Might as well start thinking of him that way, until this was over, she thought.

"Sorry," Cordelia said. "But I had to."

A faint grin curled up the corners of those lips. "You always _were_ really good at doing what you had to do."

"I _so_ really was. And _am_." He started to snicker, and then she did despite herself. Before long, they were both howling in near hysterical laughter until they finally ran dry and wound down.

"Oh, my," Xander-Hicks said. "I don't think I've ever laughed like that since... " he shrugged, and Cordelia sobered abruptly. Since everything ended, he meant.

Since the day all the laughter died...

"The back step wasn't supposed to do that. And that means... this is _really_ bad. If the T-101L kills us, it kills _both_ of the founders of the resistance."

"Then you'd better not die, Dork," Cordelia said, quietly. "Because, and I _so_ can not believe I'm _saying_ this, and I swear to _God _I will kill you _myself _if you ever tell _anyone_: I'm kind of depending on _you_ to help keep _me_ alive."

"You sure you want to count on that?" Xander-Hicks asked. "I'm not doing so good so far."

"Oh?" Cordelia arched an eyebrow. "'Cause from here it looks like you're batting a thousand so far, Dweeb."

"Heh. The Terminator was never supposed to _get_ that close," Xander said, shrugging, with his eyes still closed. "I just couldn't figure out how to approach you and I kept _dithering_ like an _idiot_ and almost got you _killed_."

"Hey!" Cordelia reached over and slapped him, open palm across the chest, so hard that it sounded like a pistol shot. He almost jumped out of his _skin_. and looked at her with wide, startled eyes. "Idiot! If _Xander_ hadn't known me since we were _five_, he would _never_ be able to approach me. Or _any_ pretty girl with a pulse. So buck the _hell_ up and quit feeling like a loser, loser."

Xander-Hicks snickered. "I've always been in awe of your command and morale building techniques."

"Damn right." That almost set off another round of near hysterics, but they managed to curtail it. She eyed him warily. "So, you done feeling sorry for yourself now?"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am! Pity party over, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, smirking. Cordelia snickered.

"Ok. So.. start with... how did you know it was me? I can't look the same as I do in, uh... when?"

"I came back on October thirty-first two thousand and thirty-three. And, you haven't changed so much as you aged, ma'am," he shook his head, and said, "But no. I had these." Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out a small leather folder, and pulled the thong it was on over his head. Handing it to her, he handled it almost reverently.

Cordelia took it with massive reluctance. It was probably a couple of her Homecoming Princess pics that Doofus had picked up and somehow worked into his lame Halloween fantasy before all this happened. She opened the folder...

It wasn't.

The girl – no, _woman__ – _in the photos had never posed for Homecoming Princess pics in 1997. And Cordelia had never posed for _these_ either. Her 'take one' photos had been a simple glamor photo head and shoulders portfolio shot, and a picture of her in a white dress taken earlier in the year. She felt her mouth suddenly go dry, and she swallowed hard.

Cordelia Chase, _this_ Cordelia Chase, as in _her_ sitting _here_, had never _been_ this woman. Not yet, anyway.

Both of them were simpl wallet sized. There was nothing really to indicate when they were taken or what year, so she had to go by her skills at judging age despite the best makeup effort and plastic surgery someone could apply. And she was _good_ at that, so...

The Cordelia Chase in the first photo was around her early mid twenties. Twenty-three or four, perhaps. She was standing before a gold, semi sunlit background, maybe an indoor wall of some sort – she couldn't tell as the focus was on the subject and the background was blurred. Cordelia in the photo was wearing a wine red, sleeveless, Chinese collared, expensive looking blouse, with a cleavage window, and just the waistband of a pair of black leather pants were showing above the edge of the photo. She was angled in half profile, her head and face turned toward the camera and her head tilted forward slightly so that she was looking from slightly under her eyebrows and lashes at the cameraman with a half smile and a wry expression of faint, amused exasperation. Ok, be honest, Chase: amused, exasperated _affection_, dammit.

Cordelia _knew_ that look, dammit. And she knew the only person in the entire universe who _ever_ managed to tease and annoy that look from her that _wasn't_ her daddy.

She knew those pants, too. She owned a pair of black leather designer jeans with a waistband like that. But she'd never posed for that photo...

The second photo was a couples shot. Outdoor background of some type. He was standing in about three quarters profile with his face turned toward the camera, arms folded across his chest, a wry, goofy half grin across his lips, and the corners of the eyes crinkling indicating real amusement that went all the way up, not just a 'say cheese!' photo grin. She was leaning forward against his back, both hands on his shoulders and her head leaning forward against him toward the camera, with her eyes lit up and a sly smile on her lips. And looking absolutely radiant and absolutely in love with the idiot she was leaning against...

The man in the photo with her was Xander freaking _Harris_.

Xander Harris, looking like he was in his early thirties, as was the her in the photo. Xander Harris, wearing a white, button down collar shirt open to the third or fourth button over a white t-shirt, with _big_ forearms and biceps folded over his chest, _big_ shoulders, dark brown hair worn short and parted on the right, combed left. Just a sprinkling of sliver in the hair at the temples... Xander Harris looking like some _serious_ salty goodness in his early thirties. Apparently another ten plus years of lifting bags of cement and working horses on lunge leads had been real _good_ to his shoulders and arms and chest... yummy. She had on a salmon colored jacket of some nice, quality material, and her hair was worn loose and wavy around her shoulders.

And there was a narrow silvery gray band on the ring finger of her left hand.

Clickety –

There had been the two times that Xander-Hicks had named her supposed son, and there'd been that barely perceptible glitch when there had almost sounded like the start of a third syllable after the Chase in Morgan Chase. And Xander-Hicks had caught it, bit it off and swallowed it and moved on with hardly a hiccup. Third syllable, or possibly the start of a hyphenated word?

Clickety-click.

Morgan Chase, one of the leaders of the supposed Resistance Command, was fifteen years old when the world ended. Meaning he was born in 1998. As in, oh, say... nine freaking _months _after _Halloween?_

Clickety-clack.

Another domino or so fell. She was wearing a wedding ring in the second photo. Titanium, it looked like. She couldn't see Xander' hands, but judging from the way idiot her was leaning against him with her cheek laid on his back and holding his shoulders so possessively, she'd just _bet_ he had a matching one.

Both photos had the unmistakable signs of being worn at the edges, torn a bit in one spot and lovingly repaired, and carefully handled. Almost like the way Xander-Hicks had handled them, like they were a talisman of some type. Maybe they were... Cordelia had a vague idea that soldiers carried all sorts of things as good luck talismans, didn't they?

Clackety-_click_.

Xander Harris was the father of Morgan Chase-_Harris_, leader of the North American Resistance Command in 2023. Father of her child. Possibly of her _children_. Although why she'd ever agree to naming a kid of hers 'Kyle Jordan _Reese_' was beyond her...

Clickety-click.

Which was absolutely freaking ridiculous. _She'd_ no more sleep with Xander, _ever_, than she'd have sex with Principal Snyder. Or _Giles_, for gods sakes.

Why...

Uh.

No. Just... no. It didn't matter how much Xander was starting to look pretty good with the extra bulk his summer and after school contracting supply job and stables job was giving him.

It didn't matter that there was always a slight undercurrent of teasing to their insult fights. Ok, more than slight.

It didn't matter that...

Crap.

Ever since they'd hit puberty, practically, freaking Aura had been subtly, and sometimes less than subtly, pushing her in Xander's direction, what with teasing Cordelia about how they used to be in early grade school. Or the time they'd had that idiotic truth and dare game at Aura's party that Xander and Jesse had somehow gotten invited to, and Aura and Jesse had shoved both of them into Aura's narrow hall closet and locked the door and said they weren't getting _out_ until they heard smooching noises.

Or the time that she and Xander had gotten stood up at the beach and stuck there together that one midsummer day between eighth and ninth grade, that had ended with...

Dammit. It didn't _matter_ that for a thirteen or fourteen year old boy with no practice, Xander Harris could _kiss_ like no one's business.

Suddenly blushing furiously, Cordelia abruptly remembered deliberately and teasingly giving Xander a pair of underwear shots while they were talking in the empty classroom about Angel. _Just_ to _tease_ him with what he'd never get his hands on, and drive him nuts, naturally. Right? Right.

Right. Because she so hadn't been coming on to lamer Xander Harris in an empty classroom. No matter that he'd saved her life earlier in a, well, actually kind of impressive bit of running through freaking _fire_ for her.

And ignored her and blown her off, after. Bastard.

No. Just... no. It didn't matter how much she was full of _hormones_ and sheer rush of just being _alive_ after he'd rescued her – _again__ – _from almost being punched by Larry, and then pirates, and then almost getting _killed_ by _Larry_, of all people. She was _not_ going to have _sex_ with Xander _Harris_ while full of hormones and adrenaline and post deadly danger thrill. _Not_. No. No way.

Her life was so _not_ a bad B-grade action movie, dammit.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly acutely aware of the rubbing of her underwear and the tight catsuit, and her suddenly hard nipples against the soft fabric. Crap. She was so _not_ getting turned on just by thinking about it. No _matter_ how good fourteen year old Xander could kiss.

It was just hormones and adrenaline. Because she was not, ever, attracted to Xander. No way. Eww.

Ok, and if she ever _did_ by some fluke have sex with Xander, she was gonna make _damned_ sure her birth control was up to date, and he was wearing a condom. Maybe three of them.

_Definitely_ not going to have sex with Xander while a thirty-six year old soldier was wearing Xander's body like a meat puppet. Even if the soldier did have a massive case of heroine worship of her.

And seriously not in the front bucket seat of an SUV in an alley.

No.

Now that _that's_ settled...

Cordelia closed the little folder, and handed it back to Xander-Hicks, almost reluctantly. He took it with that same almost reverence he'd handled it with before, started to loop the thong over his head again, and then paused and opened it, digging with a finger behind one photo. His eyebrows raised, and he grinned.

"I'll be damned," he said, pulling out a little bit of folded green paper. "My emergency funds made it also."

"Huh." Cordelia bit her lip, a thought suddenly occurring to her. "Wait, wasn't it like, impossible to send anything back except... "

"Living tissue and things completely enclosed in living tissue, right, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said.

"Then how... " Cordelia waved a hand at the folder and trailed off.

"An organic life mimicking polymer coating on the leather folder and photos, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said. He shrugged, adding, "And don't ask me how or why that works: the technology is beyond me. I'm only good with tech that sends signals or blows things up, really. I don't think even the techs that set it up really understood it, or thought it would work, honestly."

"Huh."

Xander-Hicks shrugged again, and said, "Anyway... In October of 1997, something happened on Halloween night – "

"Tonight," Cordelia said, suddenly piecing it together with all of the chaos around them.

"Right. Not sure exactly what: I don't know if even Resistance Command was exactly sure. Or if they did know, they didn't include it in the briefing, on the advice of the techs and brainiacs."

"Oh, gee, that's useful."

"Yeah, what I said," he said, grinning. "But according to them, it doesn't matter: just the act of sending something back in time is like throwing a rock, or maybe a grenade, into a pond. It sends out ripples that get bigger and spread and change things. Just my being here, and the Terminator being here, may have already changed things irrevocably – has, as a matter of fact." Cordelia raised her eyebrows, and Xander-Hicks continued, "You weren't supposed to be at the Bronze, according to the history I knew. You were supposed to be with your friends on some Halloween thing."

"I was with my... oh, wait, you mean that stupid kid escort thing? No way."

He shrugged, and said, "Dunno. Anyway, whatever happened, it left Alexander Harris with the memories of a military combat veteran, and you even more firmly ensconced with the people who would later become the core of the Resistance Command."

Cordelia didn't say anything. She just leaned back in her seat, folded her arms, and arched an eyebrow at him.

Xander-Hicks paused, his mouth stopping partly open. He looked back at her, and said, "Oh."

Cordelia slapped him on the arm, hard. "Yeah. _Oh_. Dumb ass." She shook her head, "Left him with the memories of a military combat vet? Like, oh, say, I dunno, _gee_, maybe... those of a veteran of twenty _years_ of post apocalypse combat? Like, uh, _you_ maybe?"

"Oh."

"Idiot."

"Hey! I didn't know this would happen!" Xander-Hicks gave her a wounded look. Cordelia glared back at him. "I didn't! I didn't even know I was in Alexander Harris' _body_ until _you_ showed me."

"You never looked in a freaking _mirror_? _Boy_, talk about your situational awareness."

"Hey, I was kind of _busy_, ma'am. And my focus was directed outward, for the T101L and on _you_, not inward on me..."

Cordelia shook her head, and then snickered, it abruptly being funny to her. "Yeah, I suppose appearing naked in a ball of electricity on a Sunnydale street would do that for you," she said, laughing. "Or, wait, did you just drop into Xander's body and go, 'what the hell... '?"

"No. Appeared naked in an alley across from the Thrift Store on Lemon near 5th."

Cordelia nodded, biting her lower lip again. This was all such a bizarre mix and match blending of Terminator mythology and the bizarrely familiar and almost expected... "Xander used to shop there a lot. Him and Jesse. Always buying odds and ends of stuff. And at that military surplus shop downtown by Bernie's Hobby Shop." She sighed, "I think they bought all of their scout stuff there back when we were in the Scouts as kids."

"You were a Scout, ma'am?"

"Gee, and I thought your briefing was thorough?" Xander-Hicks shrugged, and she shook her head, sighing. "Daddy made me join. He wanted me to be 'well rounded'. Mother wanted me to be a child pageant queen and beauty queen and actress. They used to fight about it when I was little. Then daddy kind of... gave up and quit fighting."

Xander-Hicks nodded. "My briefing was thorough, but it didn't cover all of the things like that. Just.. memorizing names and maps of Sunnydale and Santa Barbara, and locations, and who your friends all were and where you went and what you did. And _some_ of your and Alexander's personal backgrounds... but _most_ of what I know I gathered over the years from bits of conversation and anecdotes."

"Which reminds me," Cordelia said, frowning. "If you were expecting me to be leading a troop of kids trick or treating, how did you find me at the Bronze?"

Xander-Hicks shrugged. "Called your home and asked your Dad when he answered the phone. Told him I was a friend of yours from school."

Cordelia nodded and sighed. "And, of course he would have told you. Daddy always liked Xander, back when we were kids. He would have recognized your voice."

"Which I didn't know at the time. Did notice that he didn't even ask my name, though. Just asked if I was a friend of yours from school... "

"Yeah... " Cordelia shrugged. "Oh, which reminds me: if we're going to be running from and hiding out from Larry-bot, I need to go there. Home, I mean."

"Uh... " Xander-Hicks shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "We can't, ma'am."

"Ex-_cuse_ me?" Cordelia stared at him. "Ok, I am so not going on the run and fighting for my life wearing this cat woman suit. For one thing, these high heels? Unless you want to be carrying me most of the night, I can't run in these."

"I have money," he said, holding up the bills and looking obstinate.

"Oh yeah? How much," Cordelia asked, folding her arms again and giving him a skeptical look.

"Two-hundred and thirty five dollars," Xander-Hicks said, "Plus around four hundred and something I got from where I got these weapons."

"Oh, please, that won't even buy anything worth wearing at _Wal-Mart_, much less a real store. And like I'd _wear_ anything from Wally World."

"Ma'am, this is not the time to be fashion conscious," Xander-Hicks said, sounding and looking exasperated. Screw him. Well, not really, or not like that, anyway... and _stop_ that, Cordelia.

"Ok, look. And I have two hundred dollars and a debit card and a credit card. And there is no _way_ any _real _stores will be open in all of this," Cordelia gestured out the windshield. "So, we make a fast run by my home and I grab a bag and a quick wardrobe. Jeans, jacket, running shoes – tough stuff. And maybe even a _gun_ from Daddy's cabinet. I am _so_ tired of being unarmed and helpless feeling. In and out, and we're gone."

Xander-Hicks gave her a helpless, almost desperate look. "Ma'am. We _can't_. Don't you understand? The Terminator will _look_ for you there. We _can't_ go to any of your friends or _anyone_ you know, or _anywhere_ he'd look for you – not unless you _want_ him to find and kill you."

Cordelia's mouth fell open, and she stared at him, her eyes going wide as more dominoes fell and clicked into the pattern. "You mean... "

He nodded. "Yes ma'am. Possibly. If not, then he may have gone there after missing you at the Bronze and been waiting, just in case."

"You- you... _jerk!_" Cordelia smacked him in the arm, a hard punch, not a slap. "You... _asshole! _When were you going to _tell_ me this? And you- you- you _knew? Asshole_!"

"Ma'am... " Xander-Hicks recoiled against his door, holding up his hands to ward off more blows, and Cordelia realized she'd been beating on any part of him she could reach to punctuate every curse word. There was a small trickle of blood starting down from the corner of his lower lip where it was split.

"Don't you even ma'am me. Jerk. Dickhead. _Start_ the fucking _car_." Cordelia glared at him, absolutely incandescently furious. "And give me that shotgun before I take it away and shoot you with it."

"Ma- " at Cordelia's suddenly narrow eyed look, he broke off, swallowing hard. "Cordelia... I tried to warn you. I did tell you you couldn't go to anywhere it might expect to find you. I _did_."

He had, she remembered now. But she'd been so shook up and terrified and shaking and half insane from shock that it hadn't registered, nor had the implications... "You didn't tell me that that meant it would go to my _house_ and kill my parents and maid and everyone _else_ there."

Xander-Hicks gave her a look of such sadness and concern and compassion that it made her want to strangle him. "Cordelia... " he said, gently. "If it didn't before, and your dad was _alive_ when I called, then it probably has now. It will kill anyone who might lead you to it, after interrogating them for information that might lead it to you. It _can't_ be stopped. It won't stop. It can't be killed. It doesn't sleep, eat, or rest. It _may_ not even be able to be destroyed with the type of weapons you have here. Not even the heavy small arms at the Sunnydale Military base might do it, except for maybe a fifty caliber Browning M-2, or a SMAW or recoil-less, and I can't see them giving us one or us being able to carry or fire it." He sighed, looking out the window, "I don't even know if I can keep you alive, even if we _don't_ do anything careless. It _is_ that dangerous. It will kill anyone that gets in its way, just like it did your date, your friends, and everyone at the bar that got between it and you. Just like it did whoever it got those clothes and those weapons from."

Cordelia shook her head, feeling numb inside. God. Just _like_ a nightmare, one you couldn't wake up from. "Buffy?"

"I don't think the Slayer of this time would have a chance against it," he said, shaking his head and still gazing out the windshield. "You _saw_ that thing. It soaked up numerous rounds from a twelve gauge firing slugs, multiple bursts from a Thompson sub-machinegun, and barely even registered any of it."

"And Buffy's not much on guns... " Cordelia said. She checked her cell phone. No signal, dammit. Of _course_ not. She shook her head, and her mouth went into a straight, thin line, and her eyes went hard. She nodded. "Start the car. We _are_ going there."

"But I just said... "

"And I _heard_ you, asshole." Cordelia said. "Now start the damned car and drive, or I swear to fucking God I will get out and _walk_ and I'll knock out a damned _cop_ if I have to and _steal_ a shotgun or an automatic rifle."

Xander-Hicks lips started twitching at the corners, and she stared at him. "What?" Cordelia asked.

"That's how I got these weapons," he said.

She stared at him, her eyes widening, and started to laugh, "Oh, gods. That's just... and wait. Where did you get an SUV, anyway? And a Cadillac?"

"Stole it," Xander-Hicks said, deadpan. "Someone left the keys under the visor."

Cordelia couldn't help it. She just threw back her head and howled, laughing. It was just... too much. Xander Harris a car thief and a police fighter? Oh, gods...

When she wound down again, she wiped at her eyes and looked at him. "So. Gonna start the car, or do I walk?"

"I can't let you do that, ma'am."

"You can't stop me."

Nodding, he reached to the ignition and turned the key. The big engine cranked and turned over. "Not even gonna try. A trained soldier knows when to cut his losses and stage a strategic withdrawal, ma'am."

He reached under the seat and worked the seat catch, leaning the front bucket all the way back, and reached down into the back floorboards. His hand came out with a huge black shotgun and a bandolier of shells. He handed them to her and straightened his seat back up, and adjusted it.

"You do know how to – No, never mind. You've been shooting shotguns and rifles since you were young, right?"

Cordelia nodded, checking the weapon over. Benelli. Pump, no... semi-auto. No, convertible: pump and auto. With a pistol grip, a ghost ring sight, and a long magazine tube... not like a Weatherby or Beretta pump or auto for skeet or for hunting, but a shotgun was a shotgun was a shotgun. "Skeet and trap since I was eleven going on twelve. Near competition levels by the time I was fifteen. And I had to take the Gunsite course in '95, when there was all of the flap about the wives and families of wealthy business men being kidnapped in the Caribbean and South America – my family travels a lot down there. Loaded?"

Xander-Hicks nodded. "An empty firearm isn't much use, ma'am. Three and a half inch Brenneke slug loads, one and one half ounce. We don't have nearly enough of them."

"Daddy has almost a hundred and fifty slug rounds in his gun safe," Cordelia said. "And buckshot."

Xander-Hicks put the vehicle in gear and began to ease down the alley with the lights still off, but not before giving her a serious look. "You are sure about this?"

"I _so_ don't want to die," she said, "But I am so _not_ going to _let_ that _thing_ just kill my daddy and my step-mother and Consuela. Not if I can at least warn them." Cordelia gave him a resolute look. "No fate but what we make, right? Let's go. Jerk."

He shrugged, changed gear, and continued driving.

* * *

.


	21. Not Quite the Gorilla of Her Dreams -

**Chapter Twenty: Not Quite the Gorilla of Her Dreams…**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__4__5__pm – _

All of them watched with open mouths as Willow, uh, _Lady_ Willow, drifted majestically and rather ominously out across the porch and down into the yard. Leaves and trash began to swirl as the winds picked up. Danny saw a rime of frost begin to appear on the lawn, and the grass under Willow's feet wither as she walked over it.

A trashcan full of leaves by the edge of the driveway lifted and sailed across the yard at an angle, trailing leaves behind it and smacked into the cat girl as she was getting to her feet and looking around in bewilderment. Another lifted from the curb and smashed into a pirate wench. The one that had been beside it took off and took down the demon girl as she got up onto her feet in the yard across the street.

The apparent leader of the pirates, the most elaborately dressed one, raised a pistol in his non hooked hand, snarled something, and fired it at her.

Willow just cocked her head, looking at him. "Bored now. You can go away. We don't want you here any more."

Trash blew across yards and down the street, and more garbage cans lifted from curbs.

They got.

The ones at the back of the straggling skirmish line broke and ran first, followed by the cat girl and the demon girl. Then the Captain and the others gave up and ran, holding onto hats or chasing after them.

Slowly, the winds began to drop back down and the temperature began to stop falling.

Inside, everyone looked at each other wide eyed.

"I didn't know she could do that," Aura said.

"Nor did I," Kendra said.

Danny looked at Aura, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "You'll never take us alive, copper? Come get some?"

Aura slowly turned red from the neckline up. "Oh, shut up."

"Hey," Angel said, looking back into the room. He went over to where he'd knocked Princess Buffy off her feet when the shooting had started. Picking up the other sword, Angel looked around for the girl and the sword she'd been carrying. "Where's Buffy?"

"She must have run off when de shooting and fighting started," Kendra said.

"Great," Angel said. "We have to find her. If she went out, she'll be helpless out there as she is now."

"Another concern," Danny said, "What should we do with Viking Girl?"

"Feed her to Angel," Aura said. Everyone stared at her with outraged expressions, especially Kendra and Angel. "What?" She glared back. "Oh, jeeze. I was just kidding. Mostly."

Viking Girl solved the problem for them while they were deeper in the room and discussing it. She groaned, sat up, and looked around bewildered at the room, and then grabbed her weapons, got up and jumped out through the broken window.

"Well, that takes care of that," Aura said, nodding.

"Not real happy with having her run around where she might hurt herself or others," Danny said, looking out the window after her.

"Feel free to chase her, then."

"No thanks," Danny said, making a face. "More important things to worry about right now." He gave Aura a sharp look.

"What?"

"Are all of the girls in your little group of friends like you?" Danny asked.

"No. Well, except for Cordelia and maybe Tamara, the new girl," Aura said, grinning at him. "The others? Most of them are too vacuous to be able to tell real Gucci from a knock off without a label. And they're a backstabbing, vicious little clique that thinks that anyone who's not rich, attractive, or popular is a lower life form."

"Den why are you friends with them all?" Kendra asked, sounding curious.

"Because it's what Cordelia does now, and it's important to her," Aura said. "And, I _like_ being one of the most popular girls in school."

"But why – "

Aura put her hands on her hips, at least the one not holding a machinegun. "Look, Vampire Girl, _I've_ known Cordelia Chase since we were both _three_, before her _real _mom died. And she hasn't always been like this. I figure sooner or later she's gonna get over what all her step mom brainwashed into her and go back to being the girl I started out being friends with. I'd like to see that when it happens. Problem?"

"No." Kendra said, holding her hands out, palms out. "I was merely curious. I believe dat loyalty is an admirable trait."

"Good."

"Well, we still need to find Buffy," Angel said.

"And I still need to find de Watcher," Kendra said. "But I cannot leave you with dese people alone, vumpire."

"Wait," Danny said. "Angel seems to know this Rupert Giles and is at least acquainted with him. Why doesn't he go to speak to him and explain what is going on while we look for Cinderella. Err, Buffy?"

"Well," Angel stuck his hands in his pants pocket, looking uncomfortable. "Could, but I'm not sure you'll find Buffy without me if she has any sort of a head start and distance. Or if anything has happened to her."

"Oh? And why is dat, vumpire?" Kendra said, looking at him suspiciously.

"Because," Angel managed to look even more uncomfortable. "Vampire senses. I can find her, believe me."

"Oh? Now I'm curious," Aura said. Danny nodded.

"Fine. Because of my sense of smell, right? I can track her," Angel said, glaring. "I'd know Buffy's scent anywhere."

"Ah. It does make sense," Kendra said, reluctantly. "But my objection still stands."

"Just for the record?" Aura said. "Sniffing girls, so very eww."

"You'd have the best chance of getting through to the High School, Kendra," Angel said, while ignoring Aura, "Through all of this mess."

"Hey!" Everyone turned to look at Aura, and she said. "I have an idea. Why doesn't _Willow_ go to the library, while _we_ look for Buffy?" Everyone looked at her, still. "What? She can walk right through things. Nothing can harm her. And she can certainly at least _tell_ him what is going on, and _remember_ things to tell him, even if she doesn't know who she is right now. And then when we find Buffy, we can join them."

Everyone turned to look at Willow, who had just walked back into the den through the outer wall.

"What?" Willow said, looking back at them. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Highway 150, outskirts of Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__4__5pm –_

They hit a line of brake lights and slowing cars before they fully reached the outskirts of Sunnydale. The line slowed to a crawl, and then eventually came to a stop. Up ahead, Carl Kolchak could see what looked like flashers, a double line of road flares, and a barricade of some sort.

"Hrrm. What's up?" His colleague, Perry White, stirred in her seat where she'd been dozing off and on, and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "We're stopping?"

"Looks like something up ahead," Carl said. "Wreck." He looked harder toward the front of the line as they crawled to the top of a low rise, and added, "Or maybe a road block. Wonder what's up?"

"Hmm. No idea," White said. The radio in Perry's GMC SUV Carl was driving suddenly dissolved into a crackle of static and weird noises. "Huh." Perry began flipping through the dial, giving up after several minutes and switching it off when no station, FM or AM, proved to have anything else but static.

"I brought some cassettes and stuck them in the console," Carl said. Perry gave him a sharp look, but opened the center console and began rummaging.

"God," she said, after a minute. "Whitesnake. Queen. Zeppelin. Steely Dan, Good Rats. Blackmore's Night... you are so hopelessly retro, Carl, you should have a warning label."

"Hey, now," Carl said, "Steely Dan and the Good Rats are perfectly fine jazz rock and R&B rock and roll. And _everyone _likes Queen."

"And Blackmore," Perry nodded. "At least if they're still living in the Renaissance." Nonetheless, she picked out a tape and stuck it in the player. After a moment, the strains of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar and a female voice singing 'Locked within the Crystal Ball' began to issue from the speakers. Perry turned it down to a low, background and conversational level.

"Huh." Carl said, as they eased forwards some more. "Those are CHP cars up there."

"And that looks like the glow of a fire on the horizon up there," Perry said, pointing through the windshield. She frowned. "_Several_ of them, in fact."

"Uh, yeah. And that one glow there is coming from the direction of so-called Sunnydale International Airport," Carl said, scowling. "Now I'm really curious."

"Uh oh," Jain McManus' voice came from the back seat where he'd been asleep for the past hour.

"Yeah," Perry said. "Greer will skin us if we don't get the story on those hooker kidnappings in Santa Barbara."

"Oh, come on," Carl said, lightly. "Perry White, Ace Reporter. Aren't you the one that's always saying you want us to cover more real news?"

"What, and disappearing prostitutes aren't real enough?" Perry said, looking at him sharply. "I'm sure that'll be news to them."

"You know what I mean."

"Besides, aren't _you_ the one that was all excited and raring to get expense vouchers for Santa Barbara because you were certain that there were," Perry made air quote gestures around the next words, "'Supernatural factors' involved the disappearances?"

"True," Carl said. "But I suddenly have a feeling about this. CHiPs road blocking the ways into – and out of – a small city on the coast before Santa Barbara that's noted from some really strange rumors? My instincts are suddenly screaming at me."

"Uh oh," McManus said again.

"Stop that."

"Sure it's not just gas?" Perry said, arching her eyebrows at him.

They were now close enough to see that the roadblock – for that was indeed what it was – had at least six CHP cruisers, one of which was a canine unit, and one a large SUV. On the lanes coming out of Sunnydale, they could see armed officers carefully examining each of the outgoing vehicles in pairs, one in each pair holding a shotgun casually at port arms while the other looked inside with a light.

"Ok, now _I'm_ getting curious," Perry admitted.

It took them almost ten minutes to crawl up to the blockade and the officers manning it. The line of outbound vehicles was moving even slower, because of the searches.

Carl rolled down his window at the head of the line. "Officer."

"Sir." The CHP officer shined her flashlight into the SUV, front and back. "Just the three of you?"

"Yes, Officer."

She nodded. "Hope you're not going into Sunnydale itself," she said, "Sirs, ma'am."

"No. Headed straight through to Santa Barbara on business," Perry said. "Why? And what seems to be the problem here?" She gestured at the other line of vehicles and the searches.

The female CHP officer gave her a flat, bland look. "Escaped prisoners, ma'am. Nothing to worry about."

"Seems to be an awful lot of fires in town," Carl said. "And sirens."

"One of the prisoners is a serial arsonist," she said. She nodded to them, "I'd stay on 150 all the way to where it joins and merges with 101, and head straight through without stopping. It's not safe in town tonight."

"The prisoners are dangerous?" McManus asked from the back seat.

He got that flat, expressionless look also. "Yes sir. Ya'll have a good evening."

She waved them through, and Carl drove on past. They all looked at each other.

"Oh-kay," Perry said after a long moment.

"I agree."

Not far beyond, a few long blocks past the road block, brake lights flared ahead of them as a small group of costumed kids went running across 101, headed out of the UCS campus and toward Downtown Sunnydale. Or possibly not kids... and maybe not costumes. Those had looked and moved awfully strangely.

Almost like they weren't really human.

Carl and Perry exchanged looks again, before he put his foot slowly down on the gas. "Oh-kay," Perry said, slowly. "Exactly what _kind_ of rumors are we talking about?"

"Are you sure you really want to know?"

"No. But since I have the distinct feeling that you're about to hit this next exit and drive right up, uh, Eighth Street and into the middle of all that, I'd better."

"You know me so very well," Carl said, smirking.

"It's a knack," she said, dryly. "Oh well. I've always said we need to cover more real news."

Over his shoulder into the backseat, Carl said, "Jain, got all your equipment and plenty of tape?"

"Do I ever _not_?" came the slightly outraged reply.

"Just checking." Carl put on his blinker and slid over into the right hand lane for the exit.

He'd always wanted to visit Sunnydale.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Rendoval Road__, Chase Estate, Sunnydale, Evening 7:5__0__pm – _

"All right, here we are," Tech-sergeant Dwayne Hicks eased the SUV hybrid to a stop at the gates leading to the Chase residence. The electronic gates were open. Not a good sign... "Remember: stay close to me. Whatever happens, don't get separated from me unless... unless, well. If we encounter the Terminator, do _not_ hesitate. Don't try to fight it. Just turn and run and keep running. Get in the vehicle and drive away. I'll do my best to occupy it and slow it down."

"Until it kills you, you mean," Cordelia said, giving him a sharp look.

"I'll do my best to not let it get to that, ma'am," Hick said, doing his best to give her a reassuring smile. Judging by her expression, it didn't work.

Cordelia set her lips in a thin line. "Right. Got it. I'll turn and run while it's killing you while you're wearing the body of my... of Xander. No problem."

Hicks gave her a suspicious look. That hadn't exactly sounded like a complete agreement. He opened his mouth to say so, and she flashed him an irritated glance. "Yes yes. I know your damned words. I'll do it, _Sergeant_. Now drive."

Shaking his head, Hicks put the Cadillac into gear and eased it slowly up the driveway. Well, on the at least partially upside, if the Terminator had come here to get Cordelia's location earlier, before the Bronze, it wouldn't be here now. And it wouldn't come back. Being a thing of remorseless logic, it wouldn't expect a human on the run to come to a place of known danger...

Hicks studied Cordelia from the corner of his eye while he drove.

Ever since he'd first seen her, he'd been trying to puzzle her out. At first – and second – glance, she bore no resemblance to her future self. God's teeth, but this girl was so _young_. Young in ways that had almost nothing to do with her being only sixteen, going on seventeen, but that as well. She was... she wasn't a hardened veteran, or a leader, or a soldier, or any of the things she would become. Not yet. She was a vain, sarcastic, abrupt, shallow teen focused on dates and status and, to Hicks, completely frivolous concerns.

She wasn't even the warrior girl and part time demon fighter of this time period that his briefing had led him to expect.

He kept watching her intently, trying to see some seeds of what would grow into the woman he'd known, it seemed, all too briefly in the future. The woman whose death, and the death of Alexander Harris, had propelled a twenty-five year old Morgan Chase-Harris, a still relatively young Beverly Sheridan, Morgan's half brother, and a forty year old Slayer into the command structure of the Resistance.

And then there would be flashes of that woman, or the girl who would become her. Such as when she'd slapped him to bring him out of his sudden funk and self deprecation fit. Or when she'd set her mind, suddenly determined that _nothing_ was going to stop her from checking on her home...

Hicks pulled the car into and around the parking circle before the front of the house, aiming it back up the driveway. He sighed and opened his door, stepping out and leaving the keys inside. On her side, Cordelia did the same, holding the other Benelli shotgun in a hunter's stance across her chest, muzzle aimed upward at a slant.

Hicks thought about trading his weapon for the AR-10 patrol rifle, but as he'd not yet had a chance to convert it to full auto, decided against it.

"All right," Cordelia said, taking a deep breath and eying the house warily. "Let's go." She led the way to the partially open front door.

They found the maid, Consuela, in the foyer. There was a splash of drying blood and brains on the foyer wall, and a black rimmed hole in her forehead showing how she died.

Hicks expected a sudden breakdown from his charge, and didn't get it. Cordelia merely took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring, then set her jaw with her lips forming an even grimmer line, and her hazel eyes went cold and flat as her knuckles whitened on the pistol grip and fore-end of the Benelli. She shot him a sidelong glance.

"What, you were expecting hysterics?" she asked, her tone acidic.

"Well... "

"Forget it. I've seen way too many dead bodies since Buffy Summers came to town last year. Way too many of them were people I knew, or even cared about. Let's go on."

He heard her mutter quietly under her breath as they went forward, "I'll do hysterics later."

They found Randall Chase in the hallway leading to the den, still clutching a twelve gauge shotgun.

Cordelia knelt by the body, putting out a hand with her fingers spread, not quite touching it. "Daddy's Weatherby," she said. "He never was much for depending on the police to handle small things like home invaders. If he'd heard the shot that killed Consuela, he so _would_ have grabbed it to go look... " Cordelia closed her eyes, briefly. They were wet when she opened them again. "Daddy was a marine, you know? Back when he was young. He and Xander's dad served four years together... "

Hicks eased past her into the den. Shaking his head, he looked up, and back at Cordelia. "You don't want to come in here, ma'am," he said.

Cordelia took another, deeper and more ragged breath, and rose from beside the body of her father. "I'm sure I don't."

A few moments later she was standing next to him and looking down on her mother's body, sprawled with a portable phone lying next to one out flung hand.

"Damn. Mother could be a real gold plated bitch, sometimes, you know?" Cordelia said, softly. "And a hypochondriac, and she took too many pills, and she was a real Betty Davis of a stage mother. But she really did have chronic fatigue syndrome, not just hypochondria. And she stayed with us even after Daddy's second wife only lasted a year." Cordelia took another deep and ragged sounding breath, let it out slowly, and said, "I didn't particularly like her, but I didn't want to see her shot to death by some... _thing_."

Picking up the portable phone receiver, she pushed a button and held it to her ear. "Dead. Not even a dial tone."

"The Terminator would have disabled the land line leading in before entering," Hicks said.

Shaking her head, she wiped at her eyes with sharp, almost angry motions. Then she crossed the room over to the big, glass fronted, partially open gun cabinet. Hicks kept watch as she safed and set the Benelli down beside it, and then took out a long barreled shotgun with a silvered, engraved receiver. Hicks started to say something about the awkward length, but before he could, she knelt and, reaching under the cabinet, took out a key and opened the lower doors.

Once open, she took out some small tools and a shorter, twenty-one inch barrel with a dial-able choke, and began to swap them out with quick, practiced fingers. "Beretta SuperSport semi-auto. This one was mine, and it fits me better than that one, and I can use it," she stated. Once the barrels were swapped, she took out a box of shells and began to load it. "Brenneke slugs, you said? These are Winchester Sabot slugs. Will they do?"

"They should," Hicks said, both bemused and impressed by the girl. "As well as anything."

Nodding, once the twelve gauge was loaded, she took out a hunter's ammo bandolier and another box of shells and tossed them to him. He caught the shells, but had to kneel to pick up the shell belt. "Make yourself useful and load that up," she said. Hick worried a bit about the too too calm voice and the white lips and set expression, but didn't say anything. He started loading the ammo belt, a bit awkwardly as he was still watching for the Terminator as well.

But the house seemed quiet, and felt empty...

Next, Cordelia took out a pistol belt with a crossdraw holster, and buckled it around her hips after adjusting it a bit. She took out a large single action revolver and a cartridge box and started loading it. At Hick's raised eyebrows, she glanced at him and said, "Daddy's. A .454 Cashull magnum. Real wrist breaker to fire, but it should make an impact on that thing, wouldn't you think?" She spun the cylinder along an arm to check the loads, flipped the loading gate shut, and holstered it while he answered.

"Possibly. Can you use it?"

"At any range it's close enough that a pistol would be useful, probably," Cordelia said, standing. "And if not? If it's that close, it won't matter soon after, right?"

"Right."

Cordelia loaded additional slug rounds into the sling and butt-stock carrier, and the side-saddle carrier she'd added to the shotgun, and slung the weapon. She looked at him. "I'm going upstairs to change and pack an overnight bag. You... check around downstairs or whatever. _Don't_ follow me." When Hicks opened his mouth to object, she waved it closed again. "Don't worry. If that thing's _up_ there, I'll scream and run. I'll jump out a window or something. Just... " she shook her head. "There's more slug loads in the gun safe. I'll open it before I leave."

She did so and stalked out without another word.

She was gone long enough that Hicks started to worry, and then she came down the stairs as he was about to ignore her orders and go up looking anyway. She had on a pair of tailored, narrow cuffed, black leather jeans that were tight enough to show off her figure, but looked loose enough to run and move in. Good choice. And a long sleeved black t-shirt with a white crepe blouse worn open over it with the sleeves rolled up and the tails tied off under her breasts and above her midriff.

"That blouse will show up in the dark," was all Hicks could manage to say, a bit inanely.

"What. The robot can't see in the dark?" Cordelia asked, arching her eyebrows at him.

"Uh... " Hicks shook his head to reboot it. She looked... damn. "It has infrared and ultraviolet ocular sensors, yes."

"Then it doesn't matter what I wear," Cordelia said, nodding. Reaching the foot of the stairs, she set the Beretta against the bannister, muzzle up, and took a lightweight, hip length, gray suede jacket from over her arm that Hicks had seen but not really registered. She put it on and snapped the bottom of it closed, hiding the pistol and gunbelt. "Better?" Cordelia reached for and accepted the ammo belt, and picked up the shotgun again.

"It'll do, ma'am," Hicks said. Totally inadequate comment, but it sufficed.

"So very glad you approve," Cordelia said. She glanced at the shooting bag he was carrying along with the other Benelli, and added, "Fill up on ammo?" When he nodded, she did as well and said, "I don't suppose it would do any good to check on our housekeeper, Rosala, and the gardener, Emmanuel? They live back of the pool house... "

Hicks shook his head, and said, in a regretful tone, "No. It would have made a fast sweep of the grounds and eliminated any security guards or others it found before entering."

Cordelia nodded, biting at her lower lip. "Let's go, then. Where?"

"I'd like to stop and fill up on gas, first, and then maybe find a place to plan," Hicks said, slowly. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving," Cordelia said, looking surprised. "And I so shouldn't be, after... " she waved a hand around aimlessly, "After."

"Shock and adrenaline will do that to you," Hicks said. "They take a toll, and when they wear off... " he shrugged, "They leave a void."

Cordelia nodded. "Let's go, then."

Hicks nodded. "Then I'd like to get out of here and find some place to lose ourselves, where it'll have a harder time tracking us. L.A., maybe. Or even Santa Barbara."

Nodding, Cordelia said, "I'd like to warn Buffy and Giles and the others, but I can do that by phone if they ever come up again." She didn't even glance down at the maid's body as they left, only kept her eyes resolutely fixed forward.

True to her word, she didn't break down until they were settled back into the car, and even then she did so quietly. And no actual hysterics that Hicks noticed.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Archer Street south of Radcliff Park__, Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__50__pm – _

Not Quite Yet Princess Cinderella of Buffonia, Township of Sun Vale, stopped running finally. Her feet hurt. She'd lost the ridiculous glass slippers at some point on the way to Lady Willow's, and hadn't had a chance to look through Willow's clothing for something more suitable as that Aura girl had suggested, before...

Cinderella shook her head. She wasn't even certain why she had run, exactly. She had been doing so well at attempting to assimilate all of the strangeness surrounding her, before. And then that Aura girl had shown them their reflections in that... it just _had_ to be an enchanted mirror, of course. She had heard of such things. One queen in another kingdom was supposed to have one that _talked_, even. Because that was _not_ her face, _not_ the face that Cinderella had woken up with.

Judging from the expressions and reactions of the Warrior Rand, and ghostly Lady Willow, not their faces either.

Cinderella didn't know what was going on, nor why Aura would play such a dark joke on them. She had _seemed_ to be such a nice, if somewhat odd (and oddly dressed) young woman. But, she supposed that was the way of things. The Tales and Chronicles were filled with stories of encounters with odd young women who proved to be horrible witches or dark enchantresses...

And it had just all gotten to be too much, when the musket fire had erupted, and then those... horrible creature things had burst through the shattered windows and began attacking them. Warrior Rand, the Swordswoman Kendra, and even the Handsome and Enchanted Vampire Angel (as his story had proved him to be) had seemed hard pressed and unlikely to prevail. And that pirate had suggested keeping her for ransom...

Cinderella had heard of what happened to Princesses and Noblewomen who fell into the hands of brigands and buccaneers. She wasn't either, _yet_, but she'd never be able to convince them there was no wealthy father to ransom her. So she had run. And kept running.

And now she had no idea where she was.

She _had_ had the presence of mind to keep the sword, though. As she had said, Cinderella was _tired_ of being and feeling completely _helpless_, even if she was completely out of her depth. And, fortunately, she was no pampered and useless Royal or Noblewoman who would quail at the idea of defending herself, even if she _didn't_ know how to use a sword, exactly.

"Arrgh. And what have we here, maties?" a harsh, growling voice called out, in laughing tones. "A proper Princess, it looks like."

Oh, Blessed Mary, Cinderella thought, more pirates. Is this township simply _infested_ with them? She counted almost a dozen of the brigands, both men and women. Probably not the ones that had assaulted the dwelling, for these didn't seem to recognize her as the Princess they'd been seeking.

"Stay back," Cinderella said, raising the sword awkwardly. "Or I shall make you mostly dead."

"Arr, and is that right, Missy?" the lead pirate, or who she took to be the leader, said. He sounded – and looked – amused. "Then we'd best beware, hadn't we lads and lassies? It's a dangerous woman we have here, and no mistaking it."

"Yeah, and sure it is," one of the female pirates said, smirking. "Why, with spirit like _that_, we should make her one of us."

"Surely," said another, a male buccaneer, laughing. "_After_ she's been properly broken in and then _trained_." All of them laughed at that, slapping each others shoulders and backs – or bottoms, for the women.

Cinderella's ears perked up slightly at that. Surely they _looked_ like ruffians, but being invited to _join_ them didn't sound nearly as bad as capture and ransoming, along with all that went with it. Cinderella had always dreamed of running away to the high seas, and seeing marvelous adventures and exotic places. She didn't quite like the sound of 'properly broken in', though. That sounded unpleasant...

The five scantily dressed female captives the pirates had with them certainly suggested what being broken in might entail. But perhaps if she was _with_ the gang, she could arrange their escape somehow?

The group of brigands started forward toward her, and Cinderella was saved the effort of making a solid decision by the appearance of a very strange sight bursting through the shrubbery and bushes at the edge of the park bordering Archer street.

A very strange sight indeed. A large gorilla wearing khaki pants and an odd, khaki helmet of some type, and walking on his knuckled hands.

He stopped, stood erect, and threw back his head and roared, beating on his chest. The pirates yelled in alarm, drew and aimed their pistols, and let off a (no doubt from the effect, or lack thereof) badly aimed and ragged volley of shots.

The gorilla dropped to all fours again, roared, and charged the line of pirates, bowling them over like nine pins, knocking them all about and over – except for the two holding the captives who were standing back away from the rest.

Then he backed away from the pirates growling, and beat his chest again.

Cinderella stood where she was, her mouth hanging open and her sword hanging loose and forgotten in her hand, quite transfixed. She had never, _ever_, seen such an odd, ridiculous, and frankly awe inspiring sight in all of her years in the Enchanted Kingdom.

The leader of the pirates yelled and raised his pistol again, triggering off a shot that was no more well aimed than the others. The gorilla growled again, and suddenly swelled and grew to more than twelve feet of height, bursting out of its pants and tossing the helmet aside in the process.

Turning about, it took one long, knuckled stride over, picked up Cinderella in one massive hand, and then half turned and swiftly ambled down the side street in the direction from which Cinderella and the others had come.

She lost her sword in the process, this time.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: shadows of __Archer Street south of Radcliff Park__, Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__55__pm – _

"Well, that was certainly interesting," a female voice said from the darkness behind him.

Count Blahd, once and formerly Freddy Iverson of Sunnydale High School, but no longer, turned to see the speaker.

My word. She certainly matched the voice, yes indeed. The speaker had black hair that was piled high and knotted on top, with a long tail that swept down her back. She wore an abbreviated black and red short, puffy skirted dress with voluminous half sleeves, that had a ruffled, layered, outer skirt coming barely down to the tops of her thighs, and was low cut in front in the shape of a bat's upper wings. The dress had red trim and a line of red ruffles interleaved with the black ruffles and lace, and was topped with a black corset that raised and lifted the full breasts and enhanced her exposed cleavage. Short, folded topped, high heeled black boots capped the other end of her, below the long shapely legs. A long, high collared, black lined red cloak with a hood completed the outfit, as did full lips that were either naturally blood red, or done so with cosmetics... he couldn't quite tell from here. A bit ostentatious of an outfit, but he had worn similarly baroque ones in his time, so no lessening of style points for her on that.

She gave him a similar appraisal, and he resisted the urge to preen. He knew what she was seeing: a not unhandsome male figure with blond hair, of deceptive slenderness, and wearing a black evening suit with broad crimson lapels and long crimson cuffs over a ruffled white shirt and embroidered burgundy waistcoat. A long, high collared _black_ opera cloak with a crimson lining completed his ensemble.

Deceptively slender. For Savros Blahd was an ancient vampire of an ancient lineage, and he was quite powerful by this point in his lengthy unlife. Especially on Samhain, when the borders between the spirit realms and this one were thin indeed.

"It most certainly was, my dear," Count Blahd said. "And, please, madame, allow me to introduce myself. I am Count Savros Hieronymus Blahdivastri, late of Romania. And yourself?"

"Baroness Veronique, Mistress of the Night," she said. "And I was stalking the delightful looking Princess, before all of this. However... I believe that I do not wish to compete for her with yon large beast."

"Nor I," Count Blahd admitted. "Myself, I had my eye upon the delightful looking pirate lass in the brocaded coat and lacy black skirts, before all of this."

"The curvaceous blonde?" Veronique asked. When he nodded, she said, "Well, then, shall we hunt us some pirates?"

"Certainly, my dear. Male or female for your tastes?"

"I have been known to swing both directions," Veronique said, licking her lips. "But the Captain in the red trimmed coat with the eye patch did look tasty. We can always take catch as catch can for sport and dessert."

"Of course," Blahd said. "And afterward... perhaps, if you're so inclined, we can retire to my estate here for some further disport of another type?"

Veronique looked him up and down again, and smiled lasciviously. "Why, I do believe that that sounds quite delightful. Shall we hunt, then?"

"We shall indeed."

The former Freddy Iverson, editor of the Sunnydale High Courier, and Veronica Daley, former drill team member, swept off into the night after the band of pirates, in search of prey.

* * *

.


	22. Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves…

**Chapter Twenty-one: Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves… **

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening __7__:__50__pm –_

Tamara put away her... cell phone, she had called it, and sighed. "Why don't we go out front and see if I can get a signal," she said, looking at Murphy. "We can see what the crowd out there is up to also."

"Sounds good to me, I guess," Murphy said. He looked around the room.

They had done all they could for the injured, making them comfortable and doing what little first aid that could be done with the small medical kit. And they had laid out the dead, and covered them with table cloths that the barmaid had found in a storage room. The bartenders and the two serving girls were making another round of the small group, seeing if they needed anything further to drink. Non-alcoholic drinks, which suited Murphy fine at this point. Even if he could stand a stiff shot of whiskey about now...

No need to fog his mind and cloud his senses. They'd already had enough shocks.

"Let's go," Murphy said, standing. He set his non-alcoholic beer down on the table top, and picked up his Thompson.

"We'll hold down the fort in here," Paladin said. Cahill nodded.

"We'll go out, too," Solo said, "If you don't mind the company. Some air might be good, along with getting a bit better look at the settlement on this planet." His companion nodded, standing.

Murphy shrugged, leading the way behind Tam, and letting the strange comment pass. Just another strangeness, in a night filled with them.

Outside, he could see the glow of several fires in a number of directions around the town. And sirens, lots of them. It sounded like the police had their hands full, anyway... and fire and ambulances, if the events at the Bronze had been duplicated anywhere else.

The people outside, former patrons of the club, were standing or sitting around in small groups and clumps by various parked vehicles.

The vehicles gave Murphy even more of a turn than some of the other things he'd seen so far. They were the most certain yet indication that he was no longer where he had come from, however he had gotten here to this place. And quite possibly, no longer in his own _time_... because those were _definitely_ not the automobiles and pickup trucks and jeeps of the 1930's and '40's he was used to.

"This is going to sound like a really strange question," he said, looking at Tam, "But what _year_ is this?"

"I've been kind of wondering that myself," Solo said. Leia nodded, her eyes narrowing at Tam, as if in anticipation. "I got the impression there was no commercial or private space port on this world, when I asked the bartender and he looked at me like I was insane."

Tam gave him a sharp look, but only shrugged. "No stranger than anything else tonight, especially regarding you, Murph, and Leia." She smiled, and said, "1997, why?"

"Uh... " Murphy reeled internally, and suddenly felt like sitting down heavily. He managed to keep his feet. Giving her a sickly feeling smile, he swallowed hard, and said, "Because right before I came here, it was 1945. And I was standing on top of a burning tank destroyer in Holtzwihr, France, firing an M2 machine gun at a line of Germans that were attacking what was left of my platoon."

Tam blinked at him, and said, "Well, that certainly... no, it really doesn't clear anything up, but it answers a few questions I had. So, that was why you looked so, just... lost and bewildered when I first saw you in the bar."

"Probably had a bit to do with it, yeah," Murphy said, shaking his head.

A group of men and young women detached themselves from one of the larger clumps of people, that had been gathered around a large truck with a boxy structure built onto the rear bed. Murphy looked at the truck a bit more closely, and blinked. Almost a taste of home.

"Hey," the dark haired girl in the lead said as they came up. "I recognize you. You're the guy who was trying to stop that... man. The one with the machinegun."

Murphy shrugged.

"Yeah," another said, a short, stocky blonde haired male with a goatee, "And hey, is that a _real_ Thompson? And a real M-1 carb? Way cool."

"Wow, great costume," another, taller blonde girl said.

"Hey, hey! Give the man some space, all of you. Let him at least catch his breath between questions," the first, dark haired girl said. "Hi. I'm January Steele, of Eldritch Steele. That's our band – we were playing when everything broke out in there."

"Tamara St. Marins," Tam said, smiling. "Not bad."

"Hey, we know we suck, no need to spare our feelings," another male said, and all of the others laughed.

"Murphy, Corporal Murphy," Murphy said, before Tam could introduce him. "And this is Solo and Leia."

"So I see," the dark haired girl, January said.

"It's a thing. One name, like Prince, only with a Corporal attached," Tam said, smiling lopsidedly at Murphy. All of the band members laughed again. The laughter was good natured and infectious though, and not mean spirited, and Murphy didn't take any offense.

He took the brief moment to continue looking over the odd group. There were nine of them: three males and six young women, all probably in their early to mid twenties. All of them were dressed as either Robin Hoods and Merry Men (and Merry Women), or as Musketeers. And, fortunately, none of them seemed to think they were Lady Robin Hood or d'Artagnan, from what he could tell.

"We came out to see what was the what, and see if I could get better cell signal out here," Tam was saying.

"Been spotty to downright nonexistent all night," another girl said, a red head dressed as a Musketeer.

"But a couple of kids that ran out earlier than we did, said they got a signal briefly and got through to 911 before the bad guy came out. They saw him leave, chasing after the soldier looking kid with the shotgun, and the gal in the tiger suit."

"Cordelia, a friend of mine, and a guy named, uh, Xander," Tam said, nodding. "Hope they got away."

"Me, too," January said. "Hey, they said the cops said it might be awhile before they got here, so not to leave and to wait for them. Apparently, they're swamped."

"Don't doubt it," Leia said, looking out over the horizon at the fire glows.

"And, my manners, jeeze," January said. "You got my name. These are, in no particular order: Eric Dolan, Tori Welles, Gary Oldman – no relation, Trina Wilde, Marco Paulson, Chrissy Snow – _not_ from Three's Company, Rolinda Sorenson, and Cat Reynolds."

"Unusual music you play," Solo said, giving her that lopsided grin. "It's all Jizz Wailer bands where we're from, mostly."

"Uh huh, _serious_ characterization you guys have going," January said. "Is this a Cosplay thing? And yeah. Celtic Rock. It's kinda like Christian Rock, only Celtic."

Tam flipped her phone open again, and her face lit up. She gave Murphy's arm a squeeze, and stepped away a short distance to dial.

"Hey, you guys are like, _heroes_, really," one of the guys said, a dark one in a musketeer costume. "And the other two, and the one with the shotgun. Man, you should have _seen_ him run right under that guy's gun and grab that girl out – way mucho ballsy."

A bit uncomfortable with the hero comment, Murphy pointed and said, "Isn't that an army deuce and a half?" as Solo stepped in to take the hero limelight. Good – let him.

"Uh huh," the blonde kid with the goatee said. "Or close: 1949 Dodge Power Wagon. I fixed it up as kind of a cross between a camper and a gypsy wagon in the back for the band when we started. I have a Woody, too," he said, grinning proudly.

At Murphy's startled look, he laughed and said, "No, not like that. Although those happen too. It's a classic station wagon with wood paneled sides," he said, pointing at another vehicle. "A Woody. But that comment gets the damnedest looks, sometimes."

"I don't doubt it," Murphy said, smiling. He kind of liked this odd, bizarrely dressed, and cheerful group of kids. Glancing around, he saw that Solo and Leia had the others practically eating out of their hands, with Solo regaling them with some outlandish tale...

Tam flipped her cell phone shut, and came back to him, taking his arm, "Got through. 9-1-1 lady sounded really harried, but she said they're on their way and to hold on. She also sounded like she's been saying that an awful lot tonight – it sounded way too practiced, you know? And I called daddy. He'll be here too, once he can get loose."

"Are you two an item?" the blonde girl, Chrissy, asked. "And, hey, great accent, girl. I wish I could do that."

"Not yet," Tam said. "But I have plans. And I'm from Sint Maarten, it's in the Netherlands Antilles, down in the lower Caribbean. I come by it honest."

"Why don't we all take this back inside," January said. "We need to check on our instruments, and we could all use something to drink if they're serving." Tam nodded at that, and January continued, "And if or when the cops _do_ show up, we need to make some plans for you guys and the other heroes."

"Ok, but I have to warn you," Leia said. "It is a real mess in there."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening 7:55pm – (formerly 8:00pm)_

"But I _don't _see why I should be the one to go," Willow said, once again. "I don't even _know_ this Watcher, this Rupert Giles."

"Because, you're the one who can best get through safely," Aura explained again. "And we need Angel to find Princess Buffy, and Kendra to guard us and watch him, since she won't let him go out of her sight with us."

"Oh, bother," Willow said. She huffed, folded her arms over her chest, and said, "Fine. I shall do so. But you had all _best_ go there as soon as you find the lost Princess and help with explanations."

"We will," Angel said, looking both earnest and impatient. "We promise."

"Fine." Willow nodded, and said, "And this school library is where?"

Aura gave directions and a description, and Willow blinked. She said, "That is where the remains of the old Sunnydale Mission were when I still lived. You mean they built a high school there?" Shaking her head, she went out through the rear wall of the den, not waiting for an answer.

"Good. Let's go," Angel said. He led the way out of the house to his vehicle. Danny paused to grab the remaining sword as they left, deciding that it might come in handy.

He didn't suppose that there was any point in locking the house again, given the state of the windows...

"Man, Willow's parents are gonna be freaked when they get home," Aura said, shaking her head and looking back toward the house. "Hey, nice car."

Angel nodded. "1967 Plymouth GTX Convertible," he said, absently. "Come on, get in everyone. Buffy is helpless out there in the condition she's in. No telling what's happened to her by now."

Everyone got into the car, Danny taking the front passenger seat, with Aura sliding in next to him. Pulling away from the curb, Angel did a three point turn and headed down the street.

"I figure I'll swing up the street and around back, through the alley, and see if I can pick up her scent around the back," he said.

He apparently did, for he turned after cruising slowly down the alley, and drove slowly down the streets, turning on various ones seemingly at random.

They encountered yet another group of pirates after they had gone a number of blocks, this one much smaller, and hurrying up the road with their pistols out, glancing back over their shoulders.

"Oh, gods, more pirates? What, are we infested tonight? Run 'em the hell over, jeeze," Aura said, rolling her eyes. "No, wait. That's John Lee Walker – he's captain of the JV basketball team, jeeze. And Amber Grove..."

Danny frowned, having a thought, and said, "Slow a bit more. I want to try something." Angel gave him an odd look, but shrugged and did so. "Hey," Danny said, as they rolled up toward the little group.

All of the pirates spun, raising pistols, but none of them fired. "And what is it ye'll be wantin'," the one Aura had identified asked.

"Have any of you seen a blonde girl in a Princess outfit, about five foot nothing, and probably running with a sword?" Daniel asked him.

"Yeah, by the park back there," one of the girls said. "Back there right before the gorilla attacked." Danny blinked. Ok...

"And before the vampires attacked us and took Captain Wilde and Captain Velveteen, and a couple of others," another female pirate said, shivering.

The male that had answered first gave them both dark looks, but shrugged. "And I'm supposing the answer to yer question there, yon dandy, is being a yes."

"Did you see where she went?" Danny asked.

"Why, indeed we did, as a matter of fact," the teen Aura had said was John Lee something said, "After he attacked, the gorilla grew into a _giant_ gorilla, grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, and headed off into town towards the sea."

"Oh-kay... " Aura said. "That's new and different."

"Thanks." Danny said, and jerked his head for Angel to continue on. "Uh, carry on, matey."

"It's doing that thing, we'll be then," the pirate said. "And good evening and good hunting to ye," he added, almost courteously. "'Ware the vampires, now."

"We surely will," Danny said, throwing a sidelong glance at Angel, who smiled back at him.

"I do not like the thought of leaving them about," Kendra said, frowning and looking back as Angel drove off, slowly.

"Neither do I, but... " Danny shrugged. "I didn't want to waste time fighting them and then trying to find a police officer."

"She probably meant Radcliff Park," Aura said. "That way."

With Aura giving directions, Angel drove on a bit faster than before.

"So... uh, someone went out dressed as King Kong, I'm guessing?" Danny said. Aura and Angel just gave him helpless looks, shaking their heads.

"The strangest stuff happens in this town lately," Aura said.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __East Ocean Avenue near Alpert Street__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:__0__5pm –_

"Whoa, did you see that?" Perry said excitedly as Carl slammed on the brakes of the SUV, throwing them against the seat restraints.

"What, you mean, like: a fifteen foot tall gorilla carrying a screaming blonde girl in one hand, and knuckling it down, uh, Alpert Street as fast as he could go?" Carl said. "Nope. Didn't see a thing, why?"

Perry threw him a dark glare and punched him in the nearest shoulder, hard. "Smart ass," she said. "Did you get that? _Tell_ me you got that on tape, please."

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Jain said from the rear driver's side seat. "In full living technicolor, bigger than life and crystal clear in the viewfinder, man. Oh man, Perry, Kolchak, Greer is never gonna believe this."

"Just so long as you got it," Carl said. "And for God's sake: keep shooting."

"No idea what's going on here," Perry said, wonderingly, as another group of small costumed monsters ran past, snarling. "It's like something out of Hieronymus Bosch crossed with Dante's Inferno crossed with Night of the Living Dead."

"Just don't try to interview any zombies," Carl said. "I'm counting on _you_ to corroborate my story."

"Escaped prisoners my young black ass," Perry said. "And don't worry. I plan on being there when we run this footage." She opened and reached into the glove box, taking out a big silvery revolver and opening the cylinder to check the loads. Seven rounds, Carl noted.

"Uh... you know how to use that? And is it legal?" Carl asked, boggling a bit.

"Hey, single girl living in L.A. And of course it's legal and I know how to use it. Have a concealed carry permit and everything," Perry said, smirking. "Smith and Wesson Model 686 .357 Magnum, don't leave home without one."

"And a CCP?" Carl raised his eyebrows, and said, "Uh, wasn't that a bit hard to arrange? I mean... " he trailed off, shrugging.

"Because I'm bleck?" Perry said, quoting a line from Lethal Weapon 2 and lifting an eyebrow at him.

"Hey," Carl held up a hand, "No prejudice here, _you_ know that. I just meant... our LAPD _isn't_ known for having the most enlightened interracial policies."

"Nice save," Perry said, with an admiring tone to her voice. "And yeah, they don't. But a lot of LAPD are black. I dated a Detective at the Fifty-first who's a Captain of Detectives now. He arranged it."

"Ah. Makes sense. And, of course, I horribly deplore someone in our profession using their connections to achieve privileges that common citizens are denied in our fair city," Carl said.

"Of course you do," Perry said, smirking at him again.

Carl drove on slowly, heading north and west and letting Jain shoot footage, and feeling absurdly reassured by the presence of the heavy revolver in the midst of all this... chaos.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Mayor's Office at City Hall__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:__15__pm –_

"Alan, do tell me you have something for me," Mayor Wilkins said as his assistant entered the office, carrying a cell phone and a briefcase.

Deputy Mayor Alan Finch gulped, and said, a bit nervously, "No sir, not really. Phone lines are still down all over the city, it seems, and only coming up intermittently. And cell phones are spotty at best, not working at all at worst."

"Sigh. And one would think that with all of the funding the City Council devotes to upgrading our infrastructure, phone service would be better than it was in the 1920's," Mayor Wilkins said, looking up from his indoor office putting green. He straightened, handing the putter to his... special assistant, Mr. Trask. "So, what can you tell me?"

"Well, as Chief Munroe said, there's apparently fires all over, and we seem to have all sorts of demons and monsters running about," Alan said. "Including a crashed plane on the runway at Sunnydale Airport, where it apparently crashed on takeoff. And the Sunnydale PD is swamped, completely, as are emergency services."

Wilkins nodded. "I do hope that the Chief managed to get through to that detective fellow and inform him that we are _not_ calling in CHP and CBI or anyone else. The last thing we need is outside law enforcement running about and sticking their noses into everything," he said. "Hrmm. If Munroe does get through again, let him know that I've reconsidered: he can ask Sunnydale County Sheriff's for assistance to fill in. They're not _complete_ outsiders, and I _would_ like to have a town left to eat later on."

Alan laughed dutifully. It came out more than a bit strained. "Also," he said, continuing, "What few reports that have come in suggest that there have even been reports of a pirate ship, of all things, in Sunnydale Harbor, firing on other vessels and disgorging landing parties. And groups of pirates running about and capturing young women to haul back to their ship. And looting."

"Tsk tsk. Pirates, such dreadfully uncouth creatures," Wilkins said. "And so very unsanitary. Well, we certainly can't have that. I've gone to a lot of trouble making sure that Sunnydale has an ample supply of beautiful young women, all the way to mystical sex enhancements in the water supply to ensure a high percentage of female births. And advertising our beaches and College Campuses and opportunities heavily, by normal and mystical means. We _certainly_ can't have a shortage of young, delectable beauties for our various... humanity challenged citizens to feed on. Not to mention a steady supply for ritual purposes." Wilkins laughed, cheerfully, "Why, if _that_ happened, we'd have to start _importing_, and our suppliers in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and San Diego charge outrageous premiums for that."

Alan laughed as well, a trickle of sweat running down his face.

Wilkins looked over at Mr. Trask, his eyes and voice gone suddenly cold. "I didn't order any of this. Mr. Trask? Take some of our special assistants and go see what is about. And do see what Miss Summers and her associates are doing about it. No point in _having_ a Slayer in town if she can't be counted upon to keep a lid on things like this _before_ they get out of hand."

"Yes sir," Mr. Trask said. His face morphed briefly into the visage of a vampire, and then melted back to human again. "Right away, sir."

"Oh, and Mr. Trask?" The tall, slender man with the flat, cold, beady eyes turned back as the Mayor spoke, and Wilkins said, "Do please make sure that all of our people know that nothing untoward is to happen to Miss Summers, or any of her companions at their hands. And no feeding on her, or them, either. I am counting on her to handle lesser demonic problems between now and my Ascension next year." Wilkins smiled, adding, "_We_ have much better and more important things to do than run about dealing with every minor crisis that occurs."

"Yes sir, of course sir," Trask said, turning to leave.

"Sigh." Wilkins said. "It's just so very untidy having things like this spring up out of nowhere. I do so greatly prefer planned chaos to the spontaneous variety, wouldn't you agree, Alan?"

"Yes sir. You do, sir."

"Oh, and Alan? Please prepare the standard press release for me."

"Yes sir," Alan Finch said. "Hysterical mass hallucinations caused by a gas leak?"

"Why not," Wilkins said, smiling. "It seems to work so well on other occasions."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: East McElhaney Avenue approaching the Bronze, Sunnydale, 8:15pm – _

It had taken them almost an hour to finally get relief and finish up at the scene of the shooting. Stein and Lundy hadn't been about to just _leave_ the scene. Not only would the Chief and the Mayor's office have a fit, but Stein and Lundy's own senses of professionalism wouldn't allow them to just drive away and leave the traumatized teen girls, a critically wounded teen pirate, and three dead teenage bodies in the street. Unfortunately, no one else had been available to take over the scene and process the reports and statements, not even uniforms.

It was that busy a night for the Sunnydale PD.

Finally, a pair of SCSD Deputies, a CHP Patrol Car with a hard eyed sergeant that Stein knew from before, a pair of plainclothes CHP Investigators, and a CBI investigator had arrived. Stein and his partner had given them as fast and as concise a description of the events as possible, handed over their own notes and statements they'd taken from the girls, and plead urgent business on a case elsewhere. And had finally broken away to head to the Bronze just as an ambulance was pulling up.

Too late for most of the pirate teens, of course. The two males had been dead from Lundy's shots, and the girl pirate had bled out and died practically in Stein's arms while he'd been holding her head and feeling as useless as he ever had in his life. The other, badly wounded girl was barely holding on, and Stein doubted she'd make it...

Now, they were finally arriving at the scene at the Bronze, with a SPD patrol cruiser pulling up along side of them. Stein rolled down his window and the young uniform driving called over, "What's going on, Detective?"

"Major shooting event here," Stein said. "So very glad you guys could break loose."

"We damned near didn't, man," the young black patrolman said. "It's a fucking nightmare out there. Never saw anything like it." His female partner nodded, her eyes wide.

Stein rolled his window back up as they pulled into the bar's parking lot. They'd have plenty of time to chat and gather evidence and data when they were actually there and out of the vehicle, assuming there was anything left to gather. Lundy turned into the parking lot with the dome light on and the siren, the uniform patrol cruiser swinging in behind them.

Apparently, the paramedics had arrived shortly before. A pair were wheeling out a gurney as Paul and Lundy came to a stop, some short distance away from all of the teens and college age kids milling about the parking lot. Good. At least _some_ witnesses still there. In Sunnydale, you never knew.

"No time to talk, Detective," one of the paramedics yelled as Stein and Lundy got out. "We're gonna load up as full as we can, and hope like hell another ambulance makes it before we can get back. These kids need an emergency room, stat, or they're not gonna make it."

"How many," Lundy said.

"Twelve wounded, ten DOA," the other paramedic, a beefy Hispanic, said. "And again, no _time_, dammit."

"Be a lot _more_ DOA if a couple of young heroes in there hadn't done first aid and trauma care," the first paramedic called back, one hand steadying the portable IV drip as they wheeled along.

Stein winced, and waved them on. Messed up the scene, but it couldn't be helped. Besides, it'd probably be forever before forensics broke free and showed up, if at all. Just that kind of a night...

"Close off the scene," Lundy said to the two uniforms. "And start taking statements as fast as you can. Let's at least _try_ to get something useful out of this mess."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __The Bronze__, Sunnydale, Evening 8:20pm –_

"Cops are coming up the street, finally," a teenager yelled into the club, sticking her head in the front door, briefly. It swung shut behind her as she went out.

"Quick, _all_ of you guys come here, and bring your guns," January said to Murphy and the others. They wandered over to the stage, and she opened a large case kind of like a massively oversized violin case. The one that belonged to what she'd called an 'electric cello' when the band had been showing off their gear... "Give me your weapons. I'll hide them in here. Rest of you," she said to her band mates, "Quick; gimme cloaks, or whatever you can spare for padding and to fill it up so it doesn't clink and clatter."

"Ma'am, I don't _like_ being separated from my blaster," Solo said, his jaw tightening stubbornly.

"California law takes a real dim view of teenagers with firearms," January said, glaring at him. "You'll like doing a couple of years in juvie and then five to ten at Stockton Penitentiary once you're of age even less, believe me."

"Go ahead, Han," Leia said, putting a hand on his arm and glaring at him. "_We_ don't know the local laws here."

"Fine," Solo said, grumbling and handing over his sidearm, as did Leia. Paladin did the same, and his gunbelt, but Cahill held onto hers briefly.

"But I'm a Federal Marshall," she said. "I'm law enforcement."

"Not in California in this time period, you're not," January said. "Trust me. And you'll get them back. My word on it." Cahill sighed, handing over her rifle and pistol belt. January started to shove a cloak in and around them, as well as underneath.

Murphy hung onto his for a moment longer, not because he doubted her, really, but out of both reluctance to give up his small arms, and from another thought... "What about the witnesses? They'll tell the cops we were armed."

January held out a hand, snapping her fingers imperiously, and glaring at him. Sighing, he handed her his Thompson, and then his M2 Carbine. "In Sunnydale? You wouldn't _believe_ some of the things we've seen in this town. The locals will take any reasonable explanation you give them, run with it, and fold it neatly into whatever narrative they come up with, believe me."

"I'll see to the Cordettes," Tamara said, her mouth forming a stern line. "They'll follow my lead since Cordelia and Aura aren't here, and they're freaked. And Harmony isn't here to cause problems by being stupid and contrary. A shame Aura isn't here – _she's_ actually got a brain in her head."

Murphy nodded, taking her word for it and handing over his web belt and sidearm. January stuffed another musketeer's cloak on top and closed the case, latching it and locking it with a small key.

Just in time, too... the front doors opened, and a couple of men in suits came in who were obviously plainclothes police officers, from the looks of them. They stood aside, one holding the doors for the paramedics to rush out another gurney.

At least the wounded were finally getting some attention.

"Now," January said. "Just remember what we discussed, and _stick_ to that story. No matter what."

"Yes, ma'am," Murphy said. Heh. The tough minded and deceptively cheerful young woman would have made a hell of a squad sergeant, he mused.

"Umm, why are you helping us with this, ma'am?" Cahill asked. "Shouldn't you be helping the law?"

The band members all laughed uproariously at that. January grinned at her, and said, "Honey, we're _musicians_. Itinerant performers are classed right up there with carnies by most cops. Gypsies, tramps and thieves, like the song goes. We don't like or trust cops any more than most of them trust us. Besides..." she added, "You guys are _heroes_. It's our civic duty to help you."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Kaylee's Diner on West Walnut Avenue__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:__25__pm –_

"Not bad," Xander-Hicks said, polishing off his double cheeseburger and turning to his pie. "Good food."

Cordelia nodded. "So not the type of place I'd normally eat at, but... " she paused and swallowed hard, then went on resolutely, "Daddy liked to eat breakfast here sometimes and I heard him mention it." Cordelia looked down, picking at the rest of her lemon meringue pie, suddenly not hungry any more.

Xander-Hicks gave her a look that was full of sympathy, and continued with his own food. "I'm really sorry, ma'am."

"Ah... " Cordelia said, waving it off, kinda. "Not your fault. Except for the part where it so was. It's that... Larry-thing I'm _really_ pissed off at." She sighed, and began working on her pie again, grimly. Didn't she remember Daddy saying something once about how the most important things he'd ever learned in the Corps was, 'Eat when it's there, sleep when you can, and smoke 'em when you got 'em'? 'Cause you never knew when you'd get another chance... "And I so can't believe I was this hungry after... after all that."

Xander-Hicks nodded. "Like I said, I've seen it take all sorts of effect. Horny and hungry is the most common one."

Cordelia glanced at him sharply. He did not waggle his eyebrows and give her a half grin like Xander would have after a comment like that. Instead, Xander-Hicks looked down at his plate, his eyes determinedly _not_ on her, and slowly started turning red from the collar up.

So very _not_ Xander-like.

"Well, I'm not horny, so if you have any plans along those lines, Buster, forget 'em," Cordelia said.

Xander-Hicks looked up at her, shocked and with his mouth hanging open. He closed it hastily, and said, "N-no ma'am. I would, uh, I'd never... "

Cordelia arched her eyebrows at him. "What, I'm _that_ hideous?"

Xander-Hicks spluttered, turning an even deeper red, and going all incoherent as he about fell over himself trying to assure her that no, she was _not_ hideous, anything but, but he wouldn't ever take advantage and... Cordelia cut him off and gave him some mercy, grinning. "Easy, Soldier-boy. I'm just being mean. I'd say I'm sorry, but you had it coming for not making it clear that my parents were in danger. So... we're even now. Kinda."

He stopped spluttering, and his lips began to twitch. "Yes, ma'am. No problem, ma'am. And... " Cordelia raised an eyebrow, waiting. "If we were ever in a situation where it _wouldn't_ be taking advantage, I'd very _much_ find you not hideous, ma'am."

Cordelia shook her head, finishing her pie and smiling. "Well, not going to happen. Especially not when you're wearing my, uh, Xander's body like a cheap suit. But compliment accepted." She sighed, draining her coffee cup and waving off the waitress when she started to head their way with a coffee pot. "Speaking of, is there anyone special waiting back home for you?"

"Not exactly, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, shrugging. He focused on his pie, looking determinedly down at his plate and busying himself with his fork. "There is a... not sure what you'd call her. We never formalized the relationship. But she's not waiting, not really." He glanced up to meet her raised eyebrows, and shrugged. "We don't do that. You never know if someone is coming back, and all too often – we don't."

"Ah." Cordelia nodded uncomfortably. Because all too often, dead people didn't come back there. Unlike her and Xander's Sunnydale, where all too often they _did_, and you wished they hadn't. Time for a subject change, obviously.

And no end of subjects. Cordelia had a million and one questions, and a deep certainty that she'd never get answers for all of them. No time to ask most of them: she had an equally deep certainty that the clock was ticking, and they didn't have _time_ for a lot of extraneous curiosity. And others... a bone deep conviction that Xander-Hicks couldn't, or wouldn't answer them...

Couldn't, because he didn't have the knowledge. Wouldn't, because they were the type of things that his Commanders would have sworn him to not divulge, and she didn't have time right now to work on breaking past those blocks. So...

"Partner," she said, cocking her head and examining him. "You mentioned a partner."

"Yes ma'am. Tech Sergeant Elston Geiger, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, sighing heavily. "He didn't make the prearranged rendezvous."

"Ah. I'm sorry," Cordelia said, nodding. "Uh... not this Kyle Reese?"

"No, ma'am, at least not in partnership with me," he said, shrugging. At her curious look, Hicks elaborated. "We knew there was a... strong possibility that MALCOLM sent back other Terminators to other eras – other crux points. So there were other teams, but we were all kept segregated: what you don't know, you can't divulge is the basic operating principle." He raised an eyebrow, and Cordelia nodded. Made sense... "Elston and I did a lot of speculation on others who might have been being prepped as operatives."

"And this Kyle Jordan Reese Harris being one of them?"

Hicks nodded, smiling slightly. "Morgan Chase's – your son's – right hand. A natural choice for someone to do a job that _had_ to get done, and that could _not_ be botched."

Cordelia restrained a full body shiver at the casual assumptions that went along with the 'your son', and the sudden surge of warmth that the son she'd never known, and might never know, had someone like that... "Ah," she said, nodding. "So you weren't supposed to be doing this alone, then."

"No."

"Which means that you're another one, then," Cordelia said, and Xander-Hicks blinked at her. "Someone to do a job that has to be done, and can't be botched, you said," she elaborated, "Meaning that the, uh, Resistance considers _you_ someone like that."

"Ah. Yeah, I guess so," Xander-Hicks said, nodding slowly. An equally slow smile curled across his lips, as though that had never occurred to him... the idiot. So different from Xander, and so like the moron, in some ways.

"Duh," Cordelia said, rolling her eyes.

Looking curiously at him, she asked the major question that she'd been dreading ever since it first occurred to her...

A pressing concern, at least for her. It had just taken her some time to work up the courage to ask.

"Ah... so, if this, uh, Backstep didn't work right, and it landed you in Xander's body," Cordelia began...

"What happened to the Alexander Harris that was in here before me?" Xander-Hicks asked, his eyes darkening on hers. He shrugged with an elaborate casualness that made Cordelia want to scream. "Not sure, ma'am. Way I understand it, there's one of three possibilities."

"Yeah?" Cordelia's eyebrows raised. "What?"

"One, I displaced him and we swapped places," Xander-Hicks said, "In which case he's in _my_ body back in 2033, asking some panicky and hard to answer questions of Tech-Comm's command structure and scientists right now."

"Right. Makes sense, as much as I wish it didn't," Cordelia said, her mouth suddenly dry. "Meaning that possibly, your partner is sitting in someone else's body right now wandering around trying to sort out what to do next, and trying to figure out where and who _you_ are."

"Heh. A definite possibility, ma'am."

"And options two and three?"

"Two, he merely got shoved to the background, when I dropped in as the dominant personality and set of memories," Xander-Hicks said, glancing away uncomfortably. "Three... "

"Hey, stop that looking away crap," Cordelia said, glaring at him. "_Look_ at me when we're discussing the fate of my, uh, of Xander here."

"Yes ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, meeting her eyes. "Three... he, uh, his spirit or essence or whatever got shunted off into the astral realms, or the Ghost Roads or wherever. Not sure – I'm not a mage or a mystic, and I don't know much about that stuff."

"Oh." Cordelia swallowed hard, blinking suddenly. Dammit. "What happens if... ah. Never mind: you wouldn't know, would you?"

Xander-Hicks sighed, glancing away again, and this time she didn't stop him. "No ma'am. I really haven't any idea. This wasn't – "

"Wasn't supposed to happen this way," Cordelia said, nodding. She swallowed hard again, feeling numb. "Right."

"Yes ma'am." Still looking away, Xander-Hicks shook his head. "It wasn't. I was supposed to show up in body here, and... " he shrugged, looking back and meeting her eyes with a bleak expression. "Do the job, and _then_ sort out what happened afterward."

"You mean... "

"Yes ma'am. One way trip."

Oh... crap. Meaning that on any one of the possible options, that...

Sigh. Resolutely, and with a surprising difficulty, Cordelia shoved all of that aside, and forced the speculation and the numb feeling of sudden loss aside. Nothing to be done for it, for now. First things first: survive, escape, destroy Terminator Larry, and then...

Then put Giles' brain and knowledge of the supernatural on figuring it out and working on how to get Xander back where he was _supposed_ to be. And on figuring out what to do about _Hicks_, if anything _could_ be done...

"So. Where to? You decide?" she asked, instead.

"Yeah. Santa Barbara, I think," Xander-Hicks said, suddenly all business again. "It's larger than Sunnydale, by almost three and a half times, and if somehow the T-101L _does_ track us there, we can double back through and down to Oxnard or L.A., and leave him, uh, it, thinking that we're running north. While we cut east perhaps, after holing up and regrouping."

Cordelia finished her water slowly, thinking about it. It made sense, as much as any of this did... "Ok. Makes sense in a weird sort of tricksy way I hope I never have to think like. But we are so not running for-ever. I _won't_ be chased across half the U.S. like, like those jackrabbits my Afghan Hound used to chase at Xander's uncle Rory's place."

Xander-Hicks gave her a measuring look, and nodded finally. "Yeah. We will have to find a way and a place to make a stand sooner or later. It won't give up, and it will find a way to track you."

Cordelia nodded. "Ok, so, bathroom breaks and pay up, and then, uh, move out?" she said.

Nodding, Xander-Hicks said. "It's a plan. Let's implement it."

* * *

.


	23. The Battle of Sunnydale Menagerie

**Chapter ****Twenty****-****two****: ****The Battle of Sunnydale Menagerie**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __South Grant by the Sunnydale Zoo__, Sunnydale, Evening __8:__1__0__pm – __(formerly __8:__15__pm)_

Private Chessie appeared with a grin (how else?), and said, "Cap! There's a bunch of stuff coming up ahead."

"Thanks," Private Cap America said. She shot Benjy an apologetic look. "But she's the leader now."

Benjy shrugged, and said, "Long as the report _gets_ to me, I'm easy." Looking at Chessie, she said, "How far away, what, and how many?"

Private Chessie looked a bit dubious, and then held up four fingers and said, "Lots. Humans that smell funny, monsters things, and a bunch of pirates." She grinned then, adding "And they're still about that many blocks up thataway, First Sergeant. Private 'Kat and Private Pook are looking them over."

Huh. Four and 'lots!' and four and 'that many' could be anywhere from four to a dozen or more, and four blocks to ten. Private Chessie was even sneakier than Devila, and wide roving, but counting wasn't one of her strong suits. Oh well, Benjy could forgive a good scout a lot of quirks.

Intel is _life_, she had been discovering. "Cool," she said, nodding. "Go find 'em again and have 'Kat, and Pook come report. Devila and you keep watching them." Private Chessie saluted and then vanished all except for her grin, which faded away as she moved off.

Ok, too too very strange. We done fell down the Wabbit Hole. Maybe they _should_ have taken that left toin at Albuquerque... Private Benjy stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill blast. Dawn yelped and jumped, wiggling a finger in her ear and giving Benjy a disgusted look.

"Will you quit that! Jeeze," Dawn said.

"No. 'Cause it works," Benjy told her, smirking. Squads and rovers started to fall in from all around. "See?"

"Give it up, Dawnly," Carlos said, grinning. "Lost this one."

"Swear to God, I'll be deaf before the night is out... "

As the troop came in, Fourth Squad straggling a bit, Benjy threw a look around. Eying a house with a For Sale! and a realtors sign, she raised her hand and made a circle with her finger, and pointed at it. They all retired to the lawn behind the hedges there to wait for the scouts and then make plans.

Didn't take too long. 'Kat stepped out of the shadows by the hedge, and then Pooka came zipping in around and between bushes, low to the ground.

"Hey, Sarge," Pooka came to a hovering salute. "Or is it ma'am, how high ma'am, now? I forget."

Dawn and Carlos snickered, and Benjy shot them a rueful look. "Shoulda known that'd come back to bite me in the tail," she said. "Sarge is fine, Pook. And, what's up, you two?"

"Really bad people," Pooka said, solemnly.

"Yup." 'Kat nodded vigorously. "Bunch of 'em, and some of 'em smell dead. And _pirates_," she finished up, hissing and glaring.

'Kat just never was gonna warm to pirates, and Bev couldn't really blame her. Private Pirate Gwendolyn and Private Dread Pirate Roberts excepted, of course. They were _theirs_... "How many is a 'bunch of 'em? And how far away?"

Private Kitty Kat could actually count... she frowned, and began counting on her fingers. Uh oh. That _did_ mean a lot. Finally, she looked up, and said, "This many human types that smell dead," 'Kat held up nine fingers, "And nearly two full _hands_ of pirates. Plus a bunch of little monsters with a couple of bigger ones." Blinking, she added, "Oh, and six, no seven blocks up thataway, Chief. But some of 'em are long blocks."

Huh. Benjy scowled and looked at Dawn, Cap, Bucky and Carlos. Dawn and Carlos looked scared. Cap and Bucky exchanged nervous looks, but shrugged.

"Can you two describe them?"

'Kat and Pooka gave their best descriptions, as detailed as they could make them. Which was pretty detailed, actually, even if you allowed for the fact that 'Kat's guesses at colors were a bit vague and leaned toward purples and blues, and to Pooka, everyone she saw was 'really big!' or 'not so big'."

"All righty," Beverly said. "Pook? Go find you a roof by 'em where you can watch and run reports to the other scouts. 'Kat, I want updates, regular like. Go." Both scouts nodded vigorously, and vanished, Pooka zooming off low to the ground so her glow wouldn't give her away. "Private Ms. Kato?" The other scout looked at her curiously. "Swing out and make sure nothing's behind us or on the flanks. You're drag." She nodded and slid away.

"Uh oh," Dawn said, exchanging looks with Carlos.

"Hrmm?" First Sergeant Benjy glanced at her a bit absently.

"I know that look," Dawn said. "I've seen it on my sister at Parent's Night. You're thinking of not running, right?" Dawn was starting to look really nervous now. The rest of the troop, especially her own people, were just looking curious.

"Naw. I'm freaking _tired_ of running," Benjy said. "Besides, where we're at now? Same things that limit our options also make it dangerous to run. All the side streets off this one are dead ends. Zoo on one side, houses, yards, and then wooded creek and the tracks on the other. And other side of the zoo, if we got through to there, are all those acres of the old abandoned amusement park and wooded lots and stuff. Badlands for us. We gotta choice here: back the way we came and back into all that stuff around the Mall, or forward. Or into and through the Zoo and take our chances on the other side."

"Thought that was why you have scouts," Carlos said, "So we can avoid stuff we know about?"

"No. The scout corps is to let us know what's around us, Carlo, especially ahead," Benjy said. "What you don't know _can_ hurt you, and _will_. Believe me."

"So. Still, isn't it better to avoid 'em?"

"Yeah. But not if you run into worse stuff you _don't_ know about doing that," Benjy shook her head. "Look-see here, Carlo, Dawn, everyone. I don't _like_ those yards and the tracks and that creek and the stuff beyond. Something about 'em. They make my teeth itch. If I'd been wearing a costume that turned me into seriously bad news for little kids, that's where _I'd_ lurk. Ditto for the old amusement park and around it. And _that_ drives us farther west toward the warehouse district, and away from where we want to be."

"Uh, you know the one guy they described? White hair, long black coat with a red lining, skinny, cigarette, all in black otherwise?" Dawn said, and Benjy looked sharply at her, nodding. "He sounds like that Spike guy that was at Parent-teachers night, and tried to kill Buffy that my mom hit with a fire axe."

"Your mom hit someone with an axe?" Carlos asked, looking and sounding impressed. "That's just cool."

"No, it really wasn't," Dawn said, scowling. "It was scary. This guy is bad news, Bev."

"Uh huh." Benjy nodded. "Gimme a bit to think here. Team leaders, and all you other military types: you give it some thought too. I want ideas. Fast."

Huh. They were on a residential street just a few blocks past the Mall, having skirted the mall gingerly after seeing the fires and all the weirdness there. The street bordered the front of the Sunnydale Zoo, which limited their options a bit – not as much cover as she'd like. But there _was_ some... including a parking lot up a block or so with a lot of cars to hide around. And the shrubbery and landscaping and parking lots around the Zoo's gates and gatehouse gave her some interesting possibilities, too.

And the bad guys weren't moving very fast, just kind of ambling along like they owned the whole world.

South of the Mall and by the lower end of the Zoo meant that they were over sixteen blocks from Sunnydale High School. Just over a mile and a half: not a bad little run on a normal night, but tonight?

Tonight, that was a long, long mile and a half through enemy territory. And this Spike guy and his bad guys were _between_ them and base. Every block they retreated or were pushed farther west, was further distance across hostile ground away from their goal that had to be made up later.

Huh, and huh again. A slow smile began to spread across Benjy's lips. Not a very nice smile, but then again, she wasn't really a nice little kid any more.

Amazing how a night on the street in Sunnydale could do that to a kid, she thought.

"All right," First Sergeant Benjy said after a short while, "I done thought. I say we fight. I'd put it to a vote, but we don't have a democracy. You guys decided to trust me to lead, so that's what I'm gonna do. What I will say is: you squad leaders are good, too. If you want to take your team and whoever wants to go with, and strike out west and south, or back the way we came, then lemme know now so I can plan around it. Me? I'm going forward and through 'em."

Corporal Bucky, Private Sergeant Cookie, and Private Corporal Hotstuff, and their second in commands, all looked at her like she was insane, shaking their heads. Not _one_ offered to take their people and split off. Cap was the only one who studied her carefully, and then studied Carlos and Dawn with equal care, before saying, "But I thought we all placed ourselves under your command, ma'am?"

"Yeah. I'm letting you know _now_ that I'm _not_ some great military leader. I'm just an eleven year old kid who's _guessing_ at as much of this stuff as I can, and hoping like heck I make the right choice and don't get anyone killed or lost," Benjy explained, looking her in the eyes. "You want to strike out on your own, this is the time. Stay, and we fight."

"All of your people tell me – at length – that your guesses are pretty good so far," Cap said. "Are any of _them_ splitting off?"

Benjy looked at her squad leaders. All of them either rolled their eyes or just looked at her expectantly. "Guess not."

"Well, there you go, then," Cap said. "We got a fight to plan, soldier. Have a crisis of faith in yourself later."

Benjy looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. The slow smile spread a bit wider, and suddenly got a lot colder. "Then we fight."

"Uh oh," Corporal Bucky said. Benjy gave him a grin that was full of teeth, and nodded.

"Beverly... " Carlos said, "What are you thinking, Chica? 'Cause that smile is starting to scare me."

"You should be," Private Misty said. "Last time she smiled like that, we took _you_ guys for a ride."

"I'm thinking it's time to pull a habit out of a rat," Benjy said. "All right. Ideas, people? Got 'em, then get 'em in now. _Fast._"

They did. She listened for a brief short while, thinking hard. When they were done, she thought a bit more, incorporated a few, modified a few, and threw out a lot.

"Groovy. Ok, gather 'round, kiddies, 'cause this is what we're gonna do," she said. "It's time for Operation Let's Get Dangerous."

"Because we are the terror that flaps in the night?" Dawn said, looking puzzled.

"Darn right we are," Benjy said, grinning. With a nod, she started quickly outlining her plan, such as it was. After she was done, she said, "Got it?" No dissenters and only a few questions, most of them sharp. She clarified the details for those, and then said, "Ok. I want Dawn, Cap, Carlo, Misty, Saavik, Privates Glenda and Incantasia, um... Wicked, Spengler, and Cagney with me. Pook!"

A few minutes later, a small green glow shot in and came to a hover, with a Pooka at the end of it. "Yes'm Cap'n?"

"Listen sharp, kiddo. Go tell the scouts that this is what we're gonna do, Pook." Benjy said. Pooka listened intently, as Benjy added, "And your signal is Air Raid, got it?" and then shot off again.

"Air Raid?" Cap America said.

"You'll see," Benjy said, grinning again. "All right, everyone _else? _Places. Move 'em out and set 'em up."

* * *

Yep. There they come. What was it her sister once said about some guy that she had on her line? Fat, dumb and happy? Pretty well described 'em.

Benjy peeked again around the hedge she was lying under and next to, and crawled backwards. "Ok," she said, when she got to the rest of her team and sat up, "Show time."

"You know that this is really insane, right?" Dawn said.

"Yup." Benjy nodded seriously. "Let's move out." She noticed, a bit absently, that she was no longer having to consciously channel guys from war movies, the lines just kinda coming naturally now.

Well, as long as they worked.

Casually, in a ragged line, they strolled out of the cross street and around the corner, heading up to the even more ragged and spread out group of 'dead smelling people', little monsters, and pirates. Bev pretty well shared 'Kat's view of pirates, come to think of it...

There they were. Three blocks up, which put them right at about a block up from Beverly's chosen ambush point. Her four squads were already in place, having crawled, bellied up, or crouching run the distance keeping under as much cover as possible while Bev and her team waited. Pooka dropped in to give the squad leaders regular updates as the other guys started moving again.

First Sergeant Benjy had a sudden thought and snickered. Grinning, she stuck out her crooked arm to Misty, walking alongside her. Misty gave her a startled look, but slipped her arm through Benjy's.

Benjy started humming, and then singing, "Oh, it's off to see the Lizard, the Wunnerful Lizard of Odd!" with Misty laughing and then chiming in part way through. Beverly started to skip gaily along, singing loudly as Carlos, Dawn, and Cap trotted to keep pace, staring at her like she'd gone completely insane. "Be cod, be cod, be cod, be _cod_... he's the Wunnerful Lizzard of Odd!"

"Come on, guys, link up and join in," Misty said. They shrugged, and all linked arms, their voices coming out hesitantly at first, and then stronger as they got into the swing.

"Most nonsensical and surreal," Saavik said, but she joined in as well.

Skipping arm in arm, and singing a horrible off-key parody of the Wizard of Oz theme, the Special Operations and Parley Team of the North American Resistance Command, Tech-Comm, First Sunnydale Irregulars, went to meet the enemy.

The enemy had no freaking _clue_ what was about to happen to them.

Senior Captain Ezekiel Hook could have warned them if he'd been there, but he was currently on the other side of Downtown Sunnydale having problems of his own.

* * *

Well, _hello_, Spike thought, narrowing his eyes. The sight coming up the street past the front of the Zoo toward them was so unexpected, he actually had to stop and look hard at it. He resisted the impulse to rub his eyes and look again.

Yup. Coming up the street toward them were a really small young bint in an Army Jumper, a little Captain America, _with_ shield, a tiny girl Lone Ranger, a Japanese Pop Princess with a toy Winchester rifle, Cat Woman, a Civil War General, two little witches with pointy hats, a small and very dark Princess in a velvety black dress with a high collar, a small Ghost Buster, a small Trekkie with a toy scanner thing, and a little gangster girl with a toy Tommy Gun. Bloody hell...

And they were skipping along arm in arm, singing at the top of their lungs. Singing the Wizard of Bloody Hell Oz, for gods sake.

Like they hadn't a care in the world.

Spike laughed, throwing back his head. He shook out a Marlboro, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth and lit it. Nudging the minion next to him, he pointed and snickered. "Look, it's snack food that delivers itself."

Grinning, the minion nodded and laughed.

This should be fun, Spike thought. He'd picked up a couple of extra minions along the way, a couple of vampire bints, and they could probably use a bite about now.

The sight ahead of them was so unexpected that all of the pirates, and even a goodly chunk of the small monsters stopped in their tracks to gawp at it.

Shaking his head, Spike took a drag off of his fag. You just about saw everything in Sunnydale sooner or later. Gods, he loved this place. "All right, listen up. Let _me_ do the talking and don't move in until I say so, right?" Spike threw a quick glare around the pirates and minions and his monsters. No one dissented. "We don't want to spook 'em."

"No worries," Blackhearted said, "We got orders to bring back as many little 'uns for the scullery and midshipmen as we can."

"Well, come on then," Spike said. "No need to make the snacklets do all of the work. Let's go to meet 'em."

Hand in his pockets, he strolled along at the head of his mob until they reached the area just past the front gate houses of the Sunnydale Zoo, and the lot and landscaping around it. Suddenly looking a bit uncertain, the line of small bites stopped singing, and then came to a ragged halt about twenty feet away.

Spike stopped as well, waving the pirates and others to a halt also. No need to spook 'em. Doing his level best to put his best boyish and disarming look on his face, he looked down and drawled out, "Well, 'ello there. Wot 'ave we here now?"

The center one, the little bit with the Army jumper, gazed at him with a pair of huge gray eyes and said, a bit uncertainly, "Hey there mister. I, uh, think we're losted. Can you guys help us find our parents?"

Spike felt a slow grin spread across his lips. Oy. Fat, dumb and happy to boot. This was just _too_ easy...

Captain Blackheart snickered and said, "Well, sure kid, we'll help yas."

The other one, a taller girl with big blue eyes and long shiny hair, wearing the cat woman outfit, looked at him intently, and then grinned real big. "Hey! I remember you – you were at Parent's Night! Have you seen my sister anywhere?"

Spike blinked. _That_ he hadn't been expecting. "May have, 'bit. Who might your sister be?"

"Uh... " she looked at him and her lower lip started quivering. "Buffy Summers and she's gonna be _real_ mad that we ran off."

The slow grin got broader. "Oy, sure and I know her. I'll just bet I can help you out right smart here," he said, suddenly seriously amused. The Slayer's little sis, huh? This was just _way_ too good to be true. Spike figured that the Slayer and her mum would just about have conniptions when her missing sis showed up in a couple of nights all... hungry.

'Twas enough to make old Angelus sit up and applaud, that one was.

* * *

Benjy seriously didn't like the looks of the blond guy in the black coat. She was starting to see what Dawn had meant – he just _felt_ dangerous and mean and bad.

That awful smarmy grin of his – she supposed he _meant_ it to be reassuring, but it needed serious work for that – got even broader at Dawn's answer to his question. "Oy, sure and I know her. I'll just bet I can help you out right smart here," he said.

Beverly would just bet he could, too. Heh. Well, except for the 'right smart' bit. Dumb as a box of rocks... Her eyes narrowed a bit as he bent over and put his hands on his knees, looking at Dawn, and she slipped a steel ball bearing into the pouch of her wrist rocket, palming the marble she'd replaced with her fingers on the pouch and ready to draw back.

"C'mere, kid," he said. "Tell me where you last saw your sis, and I'll see about gettin' you there."

"Umm... " Dawn clasped her hands behind her back and dug a toe into the ground, looking down shyly. _Just_ as they'd discussed. Career in acting that girl had ahead of her... "I'm really not supposed to go up to strangers," she said.

"Oy, but I'm not really a stranger, right?" Silver Hair straightened up and started to amble toward them, his hands in his pockets. Yup. Little bit farther... "You done said you know me from your school night, right?"

"Well... " Dawn said. "It wasn't my school night. It was my sister's."

Ah. Just about there. Perfect. And Pooka should be hovering around somewhere nearby, up and out of the line of sight...

"Hey," Private Spengler said, her voice suddenly gone all excited. She was gazing down at her PKE meter with a frown. "I think he's a free standing corporeal phantasm!"

"Eh? Wot's that?" Silver Hair whipped his head around to look at her, his expression puzzled.

"I believe she is correct, Captain," Private Saavik said. "My readings are showing absolutely zero life signs in the humanoid entities."

"Wot? Waitaminnit – you mean that thing is real?" Silver Hair's eyes widened...

"That's just about close enough, there," First Sergeant Benjy said in a voice suddenly gone cold. The wrist rocket came up and online, her right hand ready to draw back fully and let fly. No life signs, huh? "I don't think you really look all that helpful. And Dawn's _not_ going up to you."

Private Misty's Winchester leveled at her shoulder, her eye at the peep sight and the muzzle aimed dead on at the Pirate Captain's forehead.

"Oy, now," Silver Hair said, his eyes narrowing. "Now, how's that a way to act? And here I am trying to find out what I need to know to help out an' all." The rest of the humans, monsters, and pirates started to fan out around him. Now, while they were scattered, but still partly bunched...

A large part of Benjy's plan had been based around one simple fact of life. Absolutely no one above the age of about twelve really took little kids seriously. And no one, except for another little kid, _ever_ saw a little kid as a threat. But no one.

At least no one she'd ever met.

It seemed like hitting puberty and growing another six inches suddenly made one see younger kids as either invisible, or as annoying irritants. And _never_ as something that could be a _real_ problem. Anyone over five feet tall and fifteen _also_ seemed to think that little kids automatically had thirty fewer IQ points than any adult or teenager. Except for her mom and dad...

The other part was based on the observation that so far, without fail, all of the little to medium size transformed monsters would run like heck when faced with a real fight. Once the guns started going off and they got hurt, they broke and fled rather than standing their ground. Held true here, Sliver Hair was going to suddenly find himself missing over half his army, and way outnumbered.

"I _said_, close enough. Stop now," Benjy told him. The pouch came all the way back, surgical tubing stretched back to her jawline and her aim point on the guy's forehead. "_Won't_ say it again."

* * *

Bemused and slightly startled, Spike looked at the feisty little hellcat glaring up at him. "And just what makes you think that if I decide to have these," he gestured around, going into game face deliberately, "Kill you and press gang your little troop and just _grab_ the Slayer's sis, you and your little slingshot will have anything to say on it?"

The results of displaying his vampire face weren't what he expected. There were a couple of suddenly drawn in breaths, but no screams or panic.

Little Soldier Bit cocked her head, those huge gray eyes studying him coldly. "Because I know something you don't know."

"Oh? And what's that?" Spike chuckled nastily. This should be good...

In an almost singsong little girl's voice, the small bit said, "_We_ have a Pooka Bell and a Kitty Kat and a Chessie and a Devila! _And_ a Kato!"

"Oy. I'm all impressed now," Spike said. "Terrified even."

"And," her eyes narrowed and her voice went back to normal, "There's a lot more of us than you think there are." The munchkin whistled, drawing back the rubbers on her wrist rocket even farther, and the kid next to her with the shield yelled, "Pook! Air Raid! Scramble!"

Something green and glowing, about the size of a small pigeon, zoomed in out of nowhere, _fast_, and kicked Spike right in the nose. _Hard_. He recoiled backward, cursing and clutching at his schnoze, and then stars and black spots danced everywhere in his vision when something _very_ hard smacked him solidly between the eyes like the fist of Thor and bounced from his forehead.

Things got very confused, after that.

There was a loud sharp _crack!_ Followed by a small voice yelling, "You missed!" and another little female one saying, "Naw. Hit_ right_ where I aimed."

Bright, strobing flashes of light, like twin flashbulbs, went off from two forward directions, at either end of the little line. Pirates and monsters fell back, squalling and clutching their eyes. Twin flat claps of pistol shots went off almost as one, and he heard a pair of buccaneers cursing.

Spike did know that there was a sudden, loud, zorching noise, and something blue-white and incandescent flashed into the pavement in front of him, turning the asphalt molten. He looked, his eyes going wide as he saw the little bit in the short Ghostbuster's jumper bringing the nozzle of her – bloody Hell! – very _real_ blaster thingy down from recoil to aim at him again.

"_You_ need to be in containment," she yelled. "You're mean!" She threw out one of those trap thingies and it clattered to the pavement nearby, and she triggered the blaster again.

Spike yelled, hell, _screamed_, and threw himself rolling to one side, his coattails flying out like wings. The spiraling, coruscating blue-white beam went over him and struck the minion just behind.

It wrapped around the minion like coils of electric fire, and Ghostbuster's bint lifted her up into the air with the beam, bringing her over the trap thing. The little bint stomped on something with a little foot, and a wedge shaped glow came out and sucked the screaming minion down and into the trap.

It closed abruptly, clattered and then lay there hissing and smoking. And another grenade from the little hellcat's slingshot beaned him in the forehead, adding little birdies to the stars and black spots. The strobing flashbulbs went off again, and his vision went from spotty to piss poor all at once.

Then something black and sleek and snarling and hissing came out of a patch of shadow and hit another minion like a biting, clawing, fury from the blackest pits of Hades. A second gray and white spotted and black snarling and spitting fury popped up and did the same to yet _another_ minion, taking him down in a flailing confusion of arms and pained yells.

Captain Blackhearted was stretched out on the ground not moving, his hat to one side and a trickle of blood coming from his temple, with several of his crew staring at him in gape mouthed shock.

Gunfire erupted from several directions, all directed inward to their position. _Including_ the deep chattering thrum of a Tommy Gun and the higher pitched snarl of an M-16...

"Bugger this!" Spike yelled, and scrabbled to his feet, taking off like the hounds of Hell were on his tail. An _arrow_ nailed him right smack dab in the, uh, dignity, and he yelled, "Ow! Buggerin' hell!" and limped on even faster.

A little red demon thing popped up out of nowhere and launched itself at his head like a missile. He threw himself into a forward roll, screaming again when that jolted the arrow in his fundament, and it sailed over his head, spitting and snarling.

A small feminine voice yelled, "Tarnation! No _fair_ – you ducked, darn it!" from where the red missile had landed.

Instinct told him to jig right as he rolled to his feet, and when he did, another arrow zipped past his chest on a level where it would have taken him in the heart...

Damn. They grew kiddies _mean_ here in Sunnydale. Screw the _Slayer__ – _they should have the _children_ patrol the streets at night.

What sounded like an M-16 went off on full auto, and hot stinging hornets slammed through his upper back and shoulders. Spike screamed again and redoubled his limping speed.

* * *

Ratz. The snarky white haired, yellow eyed demon thing got away. Private Devila sounded _pissed _when she missed her pounce – it didn't happen often.

Beverly dropped to one knee, loading and firing her wrist rocket as fast as she could as the rest of the Irregulars – the hidden ones, opened up from ambush on the crowd of demon things, pirates, and monsters large and small. A yellow-eyed demon thing stopped charging abruptly and jittered in place as Private Cagney opened up and hosed it down with her Tommy gun, non stop.

The two screaming demon things that 'Kat and Chessie were savaging finally managed to get their hands on the little buzzsaws and threw them off, turning and fleeing in panic, wide eyed. 'Kat hit rolling, came up to her feet and vanished into a patch of shadow, only to pop back out elsewhere and do her hissing buzzsaw routine on another demon thing.

She was grinning from ear to ear like she was having the time of her little life. She jumped off her demon thing when it seemed to be aimed away from the fight, and vanished, stepping into a patch of shadow, and popped up to nail a pirate.

'Kat _really_ had a _thing_ against pirates these days...

First Sergeant Benjy loaded a ball bearing, drew and nailed another demon thing that was charging at Private Misty – the rifle bullets having no apparent effect – in the forehead at the same time that a red, white, and blue shield sailed out and hit it in the throat. Its feet flew out from under it and it whomped down flat on its back. It lay there groaning. She threw a fast look and a grin at Cap, and got a quick thumbs up as the girl caught her returning shield out of the air.

Private Ranger did that blurry thing with her two chrome sixguns again, and another charging pair of pirates had their pistols jerked abruptly out of their hands. One fell back hastily, cursing and shaking her fingers. A bearded male pirate in what looked like a Captain's outfit ran up and snatched at Private Wicked, sword raised in his off hand.

She stepped back swinging, and smacked him in the reaching hand with her scepter. There was a bright flash, and suddenly there was a little kid pirate with _no_ beard there looking at her all bewildered. Wicked grinned, and stepped in and kicked him hard in the kneecap with a pointy toed boot.

Private Lady Robin nailed another demon thing in the chest with an arrow, and it suddenly let out a weird hissing sound and burst into a fall of ashes. Cool – self destructing bad guys. _Nifty_.

"Robin! Aim for there on them again!" Benjy yelled.

Cagney apparently hit something vital on her target, for it did the same thing. She immediately shifted to another one. "Heads!" Cagney yelled. "Destroy the heads!"

Private G.I. Joe raised the aim on his M-16 and let off a sustained burst, getting another weird shriek and cloud of drifting ash. "Thanks!" he yelled back.

The remaining demon things eyes widened at that, and they all turned to run like heck, nearly en masse. Most of the changelings were already running, the ones that weren't locked in some sort of combat.

There was a zorch! as Private Spengler nailed another one, and swept it into her ghost trap. She next targeted a medium sized hell-thing that looked like some sort of shambling monstrosity with a pumpkin head and a gaping, tooth filled maw. Private Hattie Black sailed her top hat out and it struck a demon thing brim on in the neck, making it burst into a shower of ash flakes.

There was a snicker-snack sound, and Private Malice of Wonderland gave out a cackling laugh. Benjy never did see what she nailed...

The Pirates had apparently already said, "Nuts to this!" and split. They left only a couple or three groaning on the pavement, victims of either Bev's wrist rocket or Bucky and Cap's shields. Oh, and the now bawling little pirate in the too large Captain's coat and hat... and the speaking Captain laid out unconscious on the pavement from Misty's creasing shot.

"Nuts to this!" sounded like a heck of a plan.

"All right! Break and withdraw!" Beverly yelled. "Guns and bows cover!" She waited until the last of her people had taken off in the opposite direction from the routed things and changelings, whistled for the retreat, and fell back herself with the missile people.

She was laughing so hard she could barely stagger when she caught up to Dawn and Carlos.

Dawn fell on Bev's neck, laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face and she could barely stand. "Did you _see_ the look on Spike's _face_? Oh. My. Gods!" She whooped laughter. "Buffy will _never_ believe this!"

"Because we have a Pooka Bell and a Kitty Kat and a Chessie and a Devila!" Carlos said, singsonging it, rolling on the ground with his arms wrapped around his middle. "Madre de _dios! _Gods, that was funny."

"_We_ know something _you_ don't know!" Dawn sang, spluttering. "Oh, gawds."

"Tarnation! No fair!" Carlos whooped and fell down again.

"Nice job," Cap said, nodding to her and laughing.

"I will never, ever doubt you again, Chica," Carlos said. "You _do_ know what you're doing."

Bev finally got herself under control. "Squad leaders! Take head count," she called out. "Make sure everyone made it. And then we are _leav_-ing!" She got a round of already on its, and snickered, and added, "Just in case they decide to come back for more, we gonna be so _very_ gone."

"Oh, man, Chica," Carlos spluttered, still laughing. "I don't think there's any danger of that."

"You never know," Bev said. "Girl Scouts: _be_ prepared. And have a plan to kill everything you meet."

"I don't think _that's_ in the Girl Scout Motto," Dawn said.

"It should be."

* * *

.


	24. Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

**Chapter ****Twenty****-****three****: ****Life Imitating Art Imitating Life... **

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __Foothill Road__, __Now Leaving__ Sunnydale __City Limits__, Evening 8:__4__0pm –_

They were stuck in a long line of cars on Foothill Road leading west out of Sunnydale, and it was taking its time about getting shorter.

"Something about this... " Cordelia said.

"I know," Xander-Hicks said, a bit grimly. "It's making my teeth _and_ the back of my neck itch."

Because of the curves and the bulk of scrub chaparral forming the trailing end of Durgan's Wood on this side of Fort Halleck, they couldn't see what the obstruction was. But Cordelia, and, she guessed, apparently Hicks, were minded of all the fires, running figures, sirens, screams, and general chaos they'd seen driving across town the first time, and then back from her house to Kaylee's and now. And the mob of pirates, leading a train of captives. Cordelia could _swear_ that one of them had almost looked like Darrin Masterson, from the football team.

It had taken them almost fifteen minutes to cross town from Kaylee's Diner with all the diverting around things they'd had to do. So...

"Wouldn't surprise me if they had a drunk trap up," Cordelia said, finally. Xander-Hicks looked at her sidelong, raising the eyebrow that she could see. "It's... where the police put up roadblocks and check driver's licenses, and give breath tests to anyone they think is driving drunk. _Supposed_ to be for safety, but _mostly_ it's an excuse to bully people and collect revenue."

"I don't have a driver's license," Xander-Hicks said.

"We're _also_ driving a stolen car, or had you _forgotten_ that?" Cordelia said, shaking her head. "We _so_ should have taken Daddy's Mercedes SUV..."

"I know. I, uh, was making a kind of a joke," Xander-Hicks said, smiling a bit wry.

"It so failed," Cordelia said, starting to snicker. "Oh, I swear you are _nothing_ like Xander, really. Even _his_ lamoid jokes are kind of funny. And don't ever tell him I said that."

"I'm a soldier, not a comedian, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, snickering himself, "And I'll try to remember not to, ma'am."

"See? Now _that_ was kind of funny. But still," Cordelia said, "Don't quit your day job."

Xander-Hicks scowled, all levity suddenly going out of his face. "I don't see anything we can do about it right now, if it is that. I'm sorry."

Cordelia nodded, biting at her lower lip. They had entered a stretch of Foothill that was between a pair of low cliffs on both sides, with only a narrow strip of chaparral between the edge of the four lane road and the rock faces. And the cars behind them, naturally, had closed up to tail gating distance and a couple had honked angrily at them for not doing the same to the one ahead.

"They're really good at this, darn it. They like picking places where you can't evade the trap once you get in it," Cordelia said. There was just no place to spin out and turn and take off off-road, even if the Cadillac SUV thing had four wheel drive...

Xander-Hicks nodded, his expression pensive and his eyes darting around the area outside the vehicle. "I'm seeing that. Good tactical ambush skills."

"Well, if we _do_ have to stop, _don't_ fight them. Don't. They'll kill you, and probably me," Cordelia added. "Really, I _mean_ it."

Scowling again, Xander-Hicks said, "But we _can't_ let them put us in jail and separate us. The Terminator won't have any problems raiding a local police station to get to you. They won't _begin_ to be able to stop it."

"I know," Cordelia said, nodding and feeling a bit numb. Ok, more than a bit... "I remember the first movie."

They crested a small rise, and they could suddenly see the head of the line, and the flares and flashers below them. Several cars it looked like, with a couple more off to the side of the road. Cordelia reached over and gripped Xander-Hicks' forearm.

"Oh, gods," she said. "Those are CHP cruisers with that Sunnydale County car, and the Sunnydale PD cruiser."

"Meaning?"

"CHP. CHiPs? California Highway Patrol. You almost _never_ see them in and around Sunnydale," Cordelia said. "And the others - "

"I recognize the SPD from my briefing," Xander-Hicks said his face gone all grim. "And it was a pair of Sunnydale County Sheriff's Deputies I had to take down and that I got the guns from.'

"Geeze. I'm with a hardened criminal." Cordelia frowned, and screw the lines. "I'm thinking really hard here." The only problem was, it wasn't helping. Gods, where was Giles and his big brain when she needed him...

"Worse comes to worse," Xander-Hicks said, "Tell them I kidnapped you."

"What? No!" Cordelia said, looking at him sharply.

"Yes ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, not looking at her. "It will make you a victim, and they'll just take statements and treat you as a witness. You'll be able to run if needed." He paused, and added, "Better get rid of the shotgun and pistol and belt."

"They'll lock _you_ up for-_ever_. Kidnapping is a _Federal_ crime, dumb ass." Cordelia scowled. "I _so_ don't want to try and deal with that thing without you. And you are so _not_ putting one of my- uh, oh hell, screw it, one of my oldest _friends_ into a Federal _penitentiary_."

"What do you suggest, then?" The question was asked in all seriousness, as though he really expected her to have an answer...

Oh, gods, he so _did_. A part of him was _still_ expecting Cordelia Chase, the great War Leader, not a scared sixteen year old girl. He actually thought she might have a _clue_, dammit. And damn _him_.

Cordelia thought, frantically. Crap. She could almost smell her brain smoking... and so much for all her jokes about _Xander_ being a lame brain. Her eyes scanned the terrain around and above them, and narrowed.

"There," she said. "Does this thing have four wheel drive?"

"Yes ma'am," Xander-Hicks said, his voice suddenly sharpening. "I checked earliest opportunity."

"Can you engage it on the fly? Or is it one of those you have to, uh, get out and lock the hubs for?"

"On the fly, ma'am," Xander-Hicks said. "Why... "

She pointed. "Up there, where that gulley cuts through the ridge line. It takes us _really_ close to the block, but if you can hit it fast in four-wheel, and climb it, can you drive off across country and _around_ all this? Those two wheel drive passenger cruisers can't handle that terrain... now, if they had an SUV... "

"I can sure try, ma'am," he said. "I'm a real good driver, and there aren't many decent roads in my time line."

"I saw that earlier when you did the Dale Earnhardt thing," Cordelia said, nodding. She made sure her seat harness was buckled up. "Uh... oh! Damn. If we have to, we can double back and go out to Xander's uncle Rory's place out in the desert. He has all kinds of WWII stuff and guns, and he's someone the Terminator probably won't think of or even know of."

"Huh." Xander-Hicks glanced sidelong at her again. "Can you trust him?"

"Oh, _hell_ yes. He's a crusty old bastard. _Hates_ the SPD, and the Mayor and everything else about them."

"Ok, hang on."

Xander-Hicks hit the brakes, once, twice, and again, drawing a lot of angry horn blowing from behind, and allowing a bit more of a gap to open between them and the car ahead. He cut the wheel suddenly and sharply to the right, and stomped the accelerator, almost clipping the front end of the car in the right hand lane, who had also been maintaining a sane gap between it and the car ahead of it, a few cars back from their position. Xander-Hicks shot through the gap, heading out onto the shoulder and starting to cut across –

– They _would_ have made it had there not, apparently, been an unmarked police car in the line a few cars behind that one. It hit its dome light, siren, and grill flashers and cut out and around the outside line of cars. _It_ didn't have to turn as sharply as they did.

The driver must have thought he was Mario Andretti or something. Either that, or he'd taken the Massad Ayoob LFI combat driving course... and the police Ford Taurus Cruiser accelerated a _lot_ faster than their big SUV.

His front bumper hit the right rear quarter panel of their SUV-pickup at speed, right behind the wheel well and right ahead of the rear bumper, slewing the Cadillac suddenly back to the right. Bits of shattered safety glass flew everywhere, and the passenger side air bag went off in Cordelia's face. She screamed, everything suddenly all impact and confusing blur.

The cruiser kept on pushing, slewing them almost sideways before it stopped.

Cordelia threw a wild look around when the air bag collapsed, seeing Xander-Hicks, his face set in grim lines, throwing the big vehicle into a lower gear as bubble lights and sirens abruptly went on atop the cruisers by the roadside at the road block. And then their right rear tire blew out. Apparently the impact had buckled something that cut into it and sliced it up.

Xander-Hicks tried, he really did. But with a flat rear tire, even in four wheel drive, he couldn't out accelerate the unmarked cruiser. A loud speaker came on, blaring out, "Stop the vehicle! Stop the vehicle now! Stop and sit with your hands on the wheel in plain sight!" as the car shoved into their rear end again, bringing their front end around to where they were angling more than a bit away from where they'd wanted to head.

Cordelia could see the passenger window on the unmarked down, and a man in a suit aiming a big silvery automatic pistol out the window. He yelled, "Freeze! Hands where I can see them! Don't move!"

She saw Hicks moving and reaching, and Cordelia shouted, "No!" and grabbed his wrist and forearm. "No! Don't! They'll _kill_ you! Don't!" she kept shouting until he stopped reaching for a gun and locked his hands on the steering wheel, his face frozen and his foot off the gas.

The SUV-pickup died. And Cordelia never did understand why they hadn't shot her while she was yelling at Xander-Hicks and wrestling with his right arm. Just like in the freaking movie, dammit.

Then there were flashers coming up on the other side, and cops were pouring out around their vehicle, guns drawn and shouting. Including one huge black cop the size of Terminator Larry or _bigger_, from the car that had smashed into them...

_Just_ like in the first freaking Terminator movie. Dammit.

When they hauled him out and whirled him around, slamming him against the car so they could cuff him and pat him down, Xander-Hicks was yelling "No! She's innocent, I'm kidnapping her! Don't arrest her! I'm kidnapping her! She's a hostage!"

Cordelia shook her head as she was pushed over the hood of the SUV, and yelled back, "No I'm not! I'm with him! He is so _NOT_ kidnapping me, _dammit_!"

She was _still_ smiling and yelling that when they finally cuffed her and a female CHP officer came to search her.

* * *

"Hey!" one of the female CHP Officers yelled as a Sunnydale PD officer finished searching the male kid and threw him to the ground, kicking him hard in the ribs. Twice. "Stop that, dammit!"

"Why?" the Sunnydale PD officer looked up, grinning. "He's armed and he was evading and resisting arrest." He drew back his foot again, and his partner drew a night stick.

"Because!" a huge, black CHP sergeant loomed up beside the smaller, Hispanic female CHP officer and roared, "He is a CH fucking _P_ prisoner, that's why! And we are _not_ explaining to _our_ captain why a teenage prisoner in CHP _custody_ 'fell down several flights of stairs', you dim witted malevolent fuckhead!" He stalked up, angrily, with the Hispanic CHP officer beside him, hand on her sidearm, and the SPD officers fell back from the huge man. "Now you back the fucking hell _up_, right _now_, or _my_ officers will cuff _you_ and throw _you_ down and put in so much fucking stick time your fucking _grandchildren_ will feel it! Do you understand me? Do we have a meeting of the fucking _minds_ here?"

He kept advancing with the Hispanic officer beside him, and they kept backing away.

The big black Sergeant had been a Marine Corps drill instructor before going back to civvies and joining the California Highway Patrol. Further, he was a full six feet five and nearly three hundred and thirty pounds, some of it fat around the middle, but most of it beef in the arms, chest, and shoulders. And right now, he could have intimidated a bull gorilla.

The SPD officer who had started the kick fest stammered, "But he's wanted by the SPD and SCSD! He's our prisoner!"

"What's that?" the sergeant roared out again. "I didn't _hear_ you! I want an _answer_, and the _only_ answer I want is yes _sir_, _Sergeant! _Is that _clear_? Huh? Is it!" He advanced another few steps until he was looming over both of them, dwarfing the Hispanic officer next to him. "I _still_ can't _hear_ you! I said, is that FUCKING _CLEAR?_"

"Yes sir, Sergeant," the other officer said, pasting a sickly smile on his face and holding his hands up, palms out. "But... our Chief and the Mayor _won't_ be happy about this."

"Then _your_ Chief and _your_ Mayor," said a shorter – although most men were shorter than the huge CHP sergeant – said, holding up a California Bureau of Investigations badge folder in his left hand, "Can call the Captain of the California Highway Patrol, and the Governor, and _our_ office, and _they_ can work it out. Get me?"

"Uh... " both officers faces paled slightly. "Yes sir, Inspector." They backed up a bit, and then turned and headed back to their cruiser, their backs stiff.

"Goddamned punks," the Sergeant growled. "I hate the goddamned Sunnydale PD." he glanced down at the comparatively little Hispanic officer, who was holstering her sidearm casually. "Drawing a gun on a fellow officer is against regs, Patrolman."

"The other one was reaching for his belt, Sergeant," she said, her tone and expression bland. "I thought he had his hand on his sidearm."

"Uh huh." He shook his head, hiding a smile. Looking down at the other man, he said, "Thank you, Inspector, for your timely assistance."

"Oh, no problem, Sergeant, uh," he glanced at the Sergeant's name tag, "Burroughs. Just thought I'd step in before there was a loud noise and your Patrolman had to fill out any accidental discharge forms."

"We're the CHP, Inspector... "

"Monahan. Inspector Monahan, California Bureau of Investigation, Patrolman Gomez."

"Monahan," the Hispanic patrolwoman said, nodding. "We're the CHP. We don't _have_ accidents with _firearms. We_ are _not_ the BATF."

"I see," the Inspector said, smiling.

"So, does this mean that our prisoner is now a CBI prisoner, Inspector Monahan?" Sergeant Burroughs said.

"Oh, no, not at all," Monahan said. "Just lending an assist in an unpleasant situation. SPD is short handed enough tonight without having a couple of their thugs, uh, purposely and _not_ accidentally shot." (beat) "Besides, the fellow did actually have his hand on the butt of his sidearm."

The big Sergeant smiled, and then lost the smile as a couple of Sunnydale County Sheriff's Department Deputies approached, a bit cautiously. "What can I do for you gentlemen this fine evening?" he asked.

Sunnydale County didn't have quite the ill reputation that Sunnydale PD had, so it didn't hurt to be polite and professional here.

"Well, we are not wanting any stick time ourselves, Sergeant," the taller, blonde male Deputy said, smiling, "Just thought you might like to know that the male prisoner matches the description of an Alexander Harris who assaulted and disarmed two of our deputies earlier this evening. And those are SCSD firearms in the vehicle, it seems. Also," he continued, "It seems that he's wanted by a Detective Stein for questioning on a number of incidents, including petty theft and a shooting at the Bronze, a local nightclub." He nodded courteously to the CBI man, and added, "Inspector."

"Thank you, Deputy Chandler," Sergeant Burroughs said, reading the name tag and nodding. "I'm familiar with Detective Stein – he's an old acquaintance from before he joined SPD. I'll so inform him that we have his suspect in custody."

"Yes, Sergeant," Deputy Chandler said. "Does that mean that you'll be taking him from our jurisdiction?"

Sergeant Burroughs thought for several long minutes before shaking his head, a bit reluctantly. "No. You and the SPD have an all points and a BOLO on him, apparently. All _we_ have on him is evading a traffic stop, possession of firearms, and a big mystery, and bigger mess, with the conflicting stories he and the girl were yelling. You _do_ know who the girl is, right?"

Both Deputies and the Inspector shook their heads, raising eyebrows and giving him inquiring looks.

"Cordelia Chase, as I overheard her telling one of our officers," he said. When that drew blank expressions, he continued, "Cordelia _Chase_, who, if I'm not mistaken, is the teenage daughter of _Randall_ Chase, who is the _son_ of William _Randolph_ Chase the Second. Ah, I see the light dawning... " he did, it was dawning over all three faces, along with sour looks. "Daughter of one of Sunnydale and Southern California's leading citizens and wealthiest investment consultants, and _grand_daughter of one of the richest and most influential men in SoCal." Burroughs grinned unpleasantly, "And she states that Alexander Harris is one of her oldest friends. And," he cocked his head, listening, "She's screaming for a lawyer right now."

Deputy Chandler and his partner both made faces. "Oh, just fucking wonderful," Deputy Chandler said. "As if tonight wasn't already pleasant enough."

"Yeah. Last thing needed is another Patty Hearst mess and a media circus," his partner, Richter, said.

Burroughs nodded. "So, you can certainly see why I'm about to say that CHP is going to make deadly certain that _we_ maintain chain of custody on both prisoners, so that Mr. Harris won't fall down any stairs or bang himself into any doors after we deliver him to SPD Headquarters and _directly_ into the hands of Detective Stein, can't you?"

They both allowed that they certainly could.

"Good. Your Sheriff can get together with Chief Munroe and our Captain and sort their own shit out. The California Highway Patrol is _not_ going to be splashed all over CNN tomorrow because _CHP_ fucked this up. Got it? Good. Thought you might."

* * *

_Tuesday, October 28, 1997: Sunnydale High School, Evening 8:45pm -_

"And where exactly _is_ Principal Snyder, Mr. Giles?" the heavyset middle aged woman asked, again. "_He__'__s_ the one that we really need to be speaking with. Our kids were supposed to be back hours ago!"

There was a confused chorus of voices, the majority of them shouting in an attempt to talk over each other and assert that yes, they too required to speak with Principal Snyder, and they didn't understand why he and the other members of the faculty on the volunteer safety program weren't there or available and...

"Please!" Rupert Giles raised his hands – and his voice – and did his level best to not raise his temper along with them. These _were_ parents concerned about their children, after all... "I am most dreadfully sorry that Principal Snyder is not available to deal with your concerns," he was, sincerely, "However, if you will please bear with me, I shall attempt to do my best," as he had been _attempt__ing_ to do, "To address them."

Rupert Giles was rapidly past the point of merely _getting_ a headache. He had a full blown throbbing in the temples skull splitter at the moment. He wondered what the result would be if he merely told these people the absolute truth: Principal Snyder, along with the bulk of the faculty, were currently upstairs locked in one of the schools unused laboratories, quite out of their minds, and acting like complete and utter berks.

He rather doubted it would go over well...

Giles, by dint of promising them in glowing detail another, even better party, had lured the assorted staff to a third floor empty lab with no outer windows, and with very narrow windows on the doors that could not be used to escape through even if broken. One that had absolutely nothing within it that could be used to harm themselves or others. Or be used to escape with. Or to set the building on fire or to blow it up with.

And then he had slipped out with Ms. Calendar and locked the doors behind himself, locking them inside. And breathed his first – and possibly last – deep, relieved breath of the evening.

Ms. Calendar said something, however, unfortunately, no one else understood it as it was in conversational Vulgate Latin. Or perhaps that was for the best – it had been quite uncomplimentary to the woman. Rupert glanced sidelong at her, and replied in the same language, "Oh, please, dear. They're merely concerned for their children."

"And, might I ask, why is that woman here with you dressed like... " the forty-ish blonde who was asking the question gave Jenny Calendar a disapproving look, waving at her costume, "Some sort of gladiator tramp?"

"Madame," Giles drew himself up and his tone went frosty, "We were on our way from _here_ to a costume ball, as I was _not_ a part of the volunteer safety program. She is dressed in that fashion as a _Halloween_ costume." He resisted both the urge to ask the woman if she did indeed know what _Halloween_ meant, as well as the one to throttle the supercilious bint...

"Isn't that Jenny Calendar, the computer teacher?" another man asked, "I thought I had seen her before."

"No. She is Jenny Calendar's sister, uh, ah Jennai. From _Europe_," Rupert Giles said, "Her, uh, ah, near identical fraternal twin."

"That's all well and good, but what we want to know is, where are our damned kids, Giles?" a plump, dark haired man in his very late thirties pushed up to the front. "Have you _seen_ around out there? It's like a madhouse! People in costumes running around, acting insane, fires, violence."

"Cats and dogs living together, a disaster of Biblical proportions!" another dark haired man in his late forties said, with a very slight smile on his lips. His wife glared at him and thumped him solidly and reprovingly on the shoulder.

"No, actually, I have not," Giles said, suddenly intrigued. _More_ people were affected than Snyder and the staff? "I was in the library here all evening, catching up on some uh, last moment, ah, w-work so that we could leave for _our_ party."

"Yes. And I can certainly _imagine_ what _kind_ of _work_ you were catching up on," the forty-ish blonde said. She stuck her chin up after giving Ms. Calendar a sweeping and disapproving once over and sniffed, loudly.

The plumpish man muttered, "I wouldn't mind that kind of work," and _his_ wife thumped him.

Giles drew himself up, glaring down at her over the tops of his glasses from his full six foot one inch height. "I c-certainly do not know what it is you are implying, madame, and I am _quite_ certain that I do not wish to know, nor do _you_ really _wish_ for me to."

She backed away hastily from the glare, muttering, and with a glare of her own, pulled a cell phone from her purse. "Well! I'll speak to the _Mayor_ about this. _His_ office arranged this program, and I'm sure he'd love to know what sort of- of... people he has staffing it." Making a harrumphing noise, she frowned at her phone, and then stomped off in search of a signal.

"You do that, madame. Give him my regards."

"You should return my blade, Scholar," Jenny said in Latin, "That I may rid you of her, and some of these other annoyances."

Giles swallowed a tight smile, not quite letting it reach his lips, and doing his best to ignore the babble of parents voices. Jenny might not currently speak English, but the woman's attitude and insinuations crossed all language barriers... "No, my dear," he replied in the same language, "It wouldn't help."

Switching back to English, Giles raised his hands again, "Please. If you'll bear with me, I'll attempt to sort out exactly what is up with the volunteer program. Unfortunately, as you've noticed, our phones are out and cell phones seem to be rather spotty at best. I _do_ understand that you're concerned, and you have my utmost sympathies."

And where precisely is all this concern when your children are being abducted and devoured by vampires or 'eaten by wild dogs', eh? Why all of a sudden? he wondered...

Muttering darkly, the crowd of forty or so parents broke up a bit and wandered off slightly in small clumps, yelling and arguing amongst themselves.

"Mr. Giles?" a quiet male voice said. Giles glanced at it to see the dark haired gentleman who had earlier made the 'cats and dogs living together' comment. "If my wife and I might speak with you a bit more privately? Believe me: I have no intention of shouting at you or abusing you."

"Ah, yes, thank you. Quite," Giles said, smiling slightly, "Ah, Mr. ah... "

"Sheridan," his wife, a slim red head about ten years the man's junior, said. "Michelle Sheridan and this is my husband Michael Sheridan."

The man nodded. "We're Beverly Sheridan's parents, and we're extremely worried about her."

Giles nodded, taking a moment to draw a breath, and study the two a bit better. Their manner, and their comportment, seemed considerably at odds with the rest of the parents... The wife was well dressed and slightly dark complected, or perhaps darkly tanned. The man had greying hair, and was Giles' height at least, and slender. He looked, err, solid and rather fit. With just a suggestion of... Ah.

"Military? Or formerly, perhaps?" Giles asked.

"Former," the man said, smiling. "Army, First Ranger Battalion, Vietnam, 1968 to 1972."

"Ah." Giles blinked, impressed, and upped his estimate of the man's age by a year or so. "Well, ah, certainly. Please, follow me." Giles led the way a short distance to the nearest school office entrance, and opened it, allowing the pair to precede him inside. He left the door open so he could hear if an emergency arose in the main hallway. "I am afraid that I'm not familiar with your daughter, uh... "

"Beverly, or Bev," the woman said, smiling. "She occasionally goes by 'Benjy' – it's a nickname her sister gave her as a child, and it seems to have stuck."

"I see. Well," Giles said, sighing. He removed his glasses, and began polishing them, "I'm afraid that I really don't have much to add to what I said out there. I was not a part of the volunteer program, and I was quite surprised to arrive and find all... this."

"I thought you were working in your office, nearby?" the man asked, mildly. "Aren't you the librarian here?"

Giles reddened. The library doors were clearly visible from the main entrance halls. He sighed as Jenny Calendar looked between them with an uncomprehending look, and a puzzled expression. "My apologies. I said that merely in response to that- that _woman's_ insinuations. I had actually just arrived to pick up a few things before heading, uh, out again," he said, gesturing at Jenny. "I really _should_ have thought my response through a bit better, I see," he said, ruefully.

Both parents laughed. "I don't blame you. My response to the woman would have been considerable sharper," the woman, Michelle, stated.

The man nodded. "Umm, may I ask why you have a sword?"

"It's, ah... " Giles glanced down at the blade in his left hand. He'd quite forgotten about it, briefly. "A prop, for Jennai's costume."

Michael nodded. "Huh. It _looks_ like a real spatha. Custom, unless I miss my guess. And, uh, Vulgate Latin? Interestingly unusual dialect, as well," he said, looking at both Giles and Jenny, raising his eyebrows. Giles returned the look, startled. "Catholic school for twelve years. We still used and studied Latin at the time. What part of Europe did you say your date was from?"

His wife thumped him again. "Mike! Quit interrogating the man," she said. Holding out a sheet of paper, she said, "We found this on the floor near one of the Volunteer tables. It's a sign up sheet. It seems that Beverly was a part of a group led by an, ah, Alexander Harris?"

Giles started. Taking the sheet of paper, he rather absently handed the spatha to Jenny so he could replace his glasses. She grunted and sheathed it with a satisfied expression. "Ah, hrmm. I quite don't understand. Alex- uh, he goes by Xander, is usually... well, actually he can be a bit of a pain, but he's reasonably responsible. And, a- ah, a very good lad, actually. I can't imagine him losing or abandoning your children unless... "

"Something happened to him?" the man said. Giles nodded a bit absently, lost in thought. "So you know the teen?"

"Ah, yes, quite. He's one of my students, as it were."

"You're also a teacher then?" Michelle asked.

"Ah, uh, no. Although I have been forced to fill in for absentee teachers in the English and Literature departments on occasion. I'm the, uh, he's a part of an, ah, extra credit study group that I lead in the afternoons and after school. He, ah, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, and Cordelia, ah, uh, Chase I believe."

"I know Randall Chase," Michael said, nodding. "And isn't Mrs. Summers a gallery owner downtown?"

"So... if our Bev and the other children are with this Xander, and he was unable to return for some reason, he wouldn't abandon them?" Michelle asked.

"No. I cannot picture that happening," Giles said, frowning. "Nor Willow or Buffy with their groups. They're all bright and fairly upstanding young women and, uh, men. Man?" Giles sighed, "If your daughter is with Xander's group, I'm quite certain he'd do everything in his ability to keep them safe."

Michael and Michelle looked at each other, and then Michael sighed and looked back to Giles, frowning. "Unless it was beyond his ability. That other man, Paulson, wasn't exaggerating: it's insane out there tonight. Like something out of some of the Devil's Night stories you used to hear about Detroit. You didn't notice?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I, ah, live quite near the school," Giles said, scowling. True enough, that: his condo was fewer than six blocks away... "I'm afraid we took, ah, side streets and I didn't see much of the town en route."

"Hmm." Michelle frowned also. "Well, Michael wasn't exaggerating either. Fires, alarms everywhere, shooting, sirens, bands of people in costume running around chasing other people... "

"Oh, dear." Giles removed his glasses again.

Nodding, Michael said, "Before our television went off and our car radio went all to static, we even heard of a runway crash at the airport."

Giles opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sound of a horrified scream from out in the main hallway. Giles almost fumbled his glasses but recovered and turned that way. Jenny drew her sword, spitting out an epithet in Celtic, and strode off, with Michael Sheridan, Giles, and Mrs. Sheridan a bit behind her.

The scream came again as they hurried out and over. It was the woman who had insinuated some sort of lascivious conduct between Giles and Ms. Calendar. "She- she- she walked through the wall! Right in front of me! It's a ghost!"

Giles stopped, blinking. Willow was standing in the hallway a bit past and down from the doors to the library, wearing a white, very ragged looking long dress with a translucent veil, over wrap, and cowl. She looked, uh... Giles blinked again. Extremely pale, and uh, was she somewhat _translucent_, almost?

Willow was frowning slightly, and looking about with a puzzled and slightly bemused expression as the woman shrieked again, pointing at her and backing away, and other parents crowded the front doorways attempting to run out of the school.

Well, it was certainly clearing the halls, Giles thought.

"Rupert Giles? I said, have any of you seen a Rupert Giles," Willow asked, looking and sounding impatient and a bit put out. "Oh, bother. Please cease that hideous noise, if you would. I am _not_ going to harm you, I merely – "

"_Willow?_"

Willow turned to face him, raising her eyebrows. "Lady Willow, yes."

"Willow? What are you doing? And where are the children you were escorting? Is everyone all right... ?" Giles finally ran down for a moment, a bit nonplussed by the fact that Willow's eyebrows went up further and she looked at him blankly. "Madame, would you please _cease_ that irritating noise?" he said to the blonde, exasperated.

"But- but- but she, uh... "

Jenny said something in Celtic, or perhaps Iberian, and stepped forward, swinging her Spatha. Giles opened his mouth to yell, and stopped as Jenny's – very sharp and very real – blade went harmlessly through the young girl without stopping. The unimpeded swing spun Jenny nearly around, and she recovered and stepped back, cursing in Iberian with her eyes wide and startled.

The blonde woman shrieked and turned and fled out the front doors. Mrs. Sheridan jumped, letting out a small shriek, and Michael put his arm around her, staring, as Willow drifted back suddenly, away from Jenny.

The temperature in the hallway dropped almost twenty degrees as Willow scowled at Ms. Calendar, and said, "Would you _please_ not do that? It is quite rude." She looked about, adding, "Are _any_ of you Rupert Giles?"

"Uh, Willow?" Giles said, doing his best not to splutter. She looked at him expectantly. "Don't you, ah, that is to say, I uh - "

"This is Rupert Giles, Miss," Michael Sheridan said. "And you are?"

"Ah. Excellent," Willow said, nodding. "And I am Lady Willow of the Cliffs, late of Sunnydale. I was sent here by a Lady Aura, a Miss Kendra, a Daniel Rand, and an Angel to speak to Rupert Giles about certain matters."

"Wait, you said an _Angel_ sent you?" Mrs. Sheridan blinked, her mouth falling open.

"Well, no, not _an_ Angel. At least not _that_ kind. His _name_ was Angel. And he was a vampire," Willow said. "But unlike other vampires I've seen."

"Miss, uh," Michael said, shaking his head. "If you don't mind my asking, how did you, ummm... " he made a sword swinging motion with his right hand.

"Oh! That was _easy_. I'm quite dead, and I have been so since the nineteen twenties," Willow said, smiling. "Since my fiancé pushed me off the cliffs at Kingman's Bluff, and I fell to my death."

"Oh. I see... " Mrs. Sheridan said, faintly... "Well, I, uh. I'm sorry about that."

"Oh! Thank you. As am I."

"Ah, uh, err," Giles shook his head, replacing his glasses and trying desperately to regain his equilibrium. He had quite given up on gaining control of this _situation_... "You said that Angel sent you?"

"Yes. I am supposed to inform you that... " Willow trailed off, frowning in concentration, "That everyone seems to have become what they were wearing for Samhain, and Buffy is lost and they are looking for her. We were attacked by pirates, you see, and she ran away. And you are supposed to attempt to find out what is going on so that we can put an end to it, or at least so that Kendra the Vampire Slayer can, as you are the local, ah... Watcher? Is that it?"

"Ah... I ah, see." Giles blinked again. "Did you say, _Kendra_ the Vampire Slayer?"

"Yes."

"Umm. What's a Watcher?" Michael asked, his voice mild. Giles glanced sharply at him and saw that the man was regarding Willow and all of this with a look of amusement, and intense curiosity.

"I, uh, ah... don't suppose that you would accept that this," Giles waved about vaguely, "Is all a hallucination brought about by excessive stress and, perhaps, a gas leak?"

"Does this school _have_ a hallucinogenic gas leak?" Michael asked.

"Well, we are rather, ah, prone to– " seeing the man's amused smile growing broader and his expression becoming more skeptical by the word, Giles sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets. "No. I'm rather afraid that we don't."

"Then no. But it _was_ an excellent line," Michael said. "Sounded almost like an official Mayor's Office press release."

"Well, that _is_ where I stole it from originally, actually." Sighing, Giles said, "Perhaps we should all retire to the library. I'll fix us some tea, or coffee if you'd prefer."

"Yes," Mrs. Sheridan said, "That would be... " she swallowed. "Nice."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world, old chap," Michael said, still smiling. "You wouldn't happen to have anything a bit stiffer to go in that coffee, would you?"

"Umm. Would a fifteen year old single malt suffice?"

"Oh, definitely. Lead on."

* * *

.


	25. Look! Top 'o the World, Ma!

**Chapter ****Twenty****-****four****: ****Look! Top 'o the World, Ma!**

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Meandering Way near Revello, Sunnydale, Evening __8__:__0__5__pm – _

"Huh." Lucinda Gennerly, or, rather, the former Lucinda Gennerly, vampire, smiled broadly. So, the Slayer was out on the streets somewhere near here, and not in her right mind either? Spike was going to _love_ hearing this, finally.

Adjusting and tugging up on the top of her red leather bustier, she stepped out from the shadows of the tree she'd been standing under, a few yards up from the one the pirates had laid siege from. As she had watched Angel's convertible pull away from the house, she'd pulled a TracFone from her pocket, frowning at the display.

Well, he would if she could ever get a signal, anyway. And if _he_ had a signal... Lucinda supposed she'd probably have to go and _find_ the jerk, _physically_. Crap.

What a pain in the ass. It was almost tempting to just hunt down the damned transformed Slayer herself, drain her, and then leave Sunnydale... she'd heard that Los Angeles was a seriously rocking place for people of the undead persuasion.

Almost tempted. Spike would probably come looking for her with that insane chick of his, and he was seriously dangerous when he was pissed off. More dangerous than _Lucinda_ was, anyway.

Oh well.

Next damned time she was going to wear something other than high heeled boots if she was gonna have to hike all over Sunnydale.

And, just what the hell was _up _with that scary ghost girl, anyway? And that freak in the Iron Fist outfit?

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __North Osgood Street near Wilkins B__lvd__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:__4__5pm –_

"Are you sure this is worthwhile?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Spike, aka William the Bloody, turned and glared at Braggins, and snarled, "Will you stop asking me that?"

Actually, Spike was tempted to just tear the whinging arse's head off and watch the dust shower, but... he only had his original half a dozen minions left now. At least two of them were trapped inside of that little Ghost Buster bint's frigging ghost trap, several more were dead, and at least one had run screaming in another direction from where Spike's crew had taken off toward.

The pirate crew hadn't wanted anything more to do with him, either. Spike really couldn't blame them, not after he had grabbed one of the female pirates for a snack. That had turned into a right nice dustup, it had, even though those blasted pistols had hurt like bleedin' hell.

Come to think of it, even though he'd killed two of the male pirates, despite their swords, he never had gotten that snack. Bloody wench had gotten away in all the fighting.

Bloody hell. If not for those blasted kids...

_Kids__,_ hell. They were bloody demons in kid's clothing, that's what they were. _Especially_ that little gray eyed bint with the wrist rocket. And that bloody Robin Hood wench with the bow...

Spike settled for dope slapping the minion upside the back of his idiotic head, resisting the urge to rub his ass cheek. That damned arrow had _hurt_ coming out.

"I still say we should have followed that big monkey," another minion said. "Are you _sure_ that wasn't your Slayer he was carrying?"

"Yes I'm sure," Spike said, rolling his eyes. "Even if she's all inside out like Dru said, the bloody _Slayer_ wouldn't be screaming her head off like a bleedin' ninny, would she?"

Another minion dope slapped the one that had asked the question, saving Spike the trouble. "And would the Slayer be dressed like freaking _Cinderella_? Jeeze," the dope slapper said, looking disgusted. "Moron."

"'Guess not," the dope slapped said, rubbing the back of his head. "Ow."

"Oy, wot's this now?" Spike stopped at the corner where the side street they were on neared Osgood, and took out his Marlboros. He stuck one in the corner of his mouth and lit it, reflecting that he was going to need a fresh pack. Oh well. They _were_ downtown now. 'ad to be a store here they could hit for a quick snack and some smokes...

Spike and his much reduced gang had been wandering about since that... debacle, he didn't see any other word for it, with the pack of demon kids. No real point in heading anywhere in particular: one direction was as good as another. And it made sense that Summers would be wherever the thickest concentration of chaos and destruction was.

He _had_ wondered a bit about the girl that the huge gorilla had been carrying. But he hadn't been able to get a good whiff. Too much smoke around here. Seemed like every arsehole with a match or Bic lighter was into arson these days, torching an abandoned car or trash bins or something... Still, Spike seriously doubted the Slayer would let herself get into a fix like that. Buffy Summers had been hellaciously fast, and a hell of a fighter when he'd crossed fists with her.

The female vampire he'd spotted, the one that had caused the 'Wot's this?' comment, raised an eyebrow and then glared at him. She shook her head, gripping a katana in one hand... looked like it maybe came from some of those dissolving ninjas Spike and his remaining crew had run into a bit earlier.

The other girl with her, a strawberry blonde teen about the same age as the vampiress and wearing an abbreviated black and gold witch outfit, glared at them, her hands starting to glow slightly.

"Piss off, Spike," the vampiress said. "I don't want anything to do with you or any more of your half assed ideas."

"Oy, now, Sheila, is that any way to be?" Spike snickered, amused at the bint's brass.

"Frankly? Yeah, it is," Sheila Martini said. "You nearly got my ass killed last time around."

"Well, actually, if you wanna be that way about it, who needs ya?" Spike said, shrugging. "Plenty 'o town here. You stay away from me, an' I won't bother you. 'ow's that?"

"Suits."

"You 'aven't 'appened to see the Summers gal around anywhere, 'ave ya?" Spike asked.

Sheila narrowed her eyes at him, and said, "What's it to ya?"

"Have a bit of a mind to have another go at her," Spike said.

Shelia grinned at him, snickering. Finally, after a moment, she pointed with her sword. "Yeah. She was headed thataway in the hand of King Kong. Best of luck on that."

Blast. Spike cursed vociferously for several minutes.

"Anything else?" Shelia eyed him suspiciously, once he'd wound down finally.

"Naw. Bloody hell." Spike shook his head, grimacing sourly. Just his frigging luck...

Shelia nodded, and said, "C'mon, Amy." The two of them cautiously backed into an alley, then turned and ran.

Some more roars and snarls came from a bit farther up, and Spike realized he'd been hearing them for awhile now during the conversation with Shelia. As he cocked his head, a pair of shots rang out, followed by another. Heavy caliber pistol, sounded like.

Spike grinned, and ambled that direction, tossing his smoke aside.

Well, well. Looky here. An SUV was stopped, turned partly back around where apparently the driver had made the turn from a side street a couple of blocks up, and then found his way blocked by a pair of wrecked and burning cars. And then had found it blocked from going elsewhere by a mob of costumed zombie monsters, who were currently now arrayed around and in back of the vehicle snarling. Even as he watched, several of them shoved at the SUV, rocking it on its wheels.

The driver, a dark haired and slender bloke, was looking around at the group with frank amazement. There was another fellow standing half out of the sun roof with a video camera, shooting footage for all he was worth.

Another shot rang out on the other side of the car, and the zombie creatures there scattered, briefly.

No need to find a store for snacks. And maybe one of the blokes would 'ave some ciggies...

"Hey! You lot!" Spike yelled, striding up with his minions trailing along. "Back the bloody 'ell off, now."

The crowd of zombie monsters backed away from the SUV, startled, and rounded on him, growling.

"Yeah, you! Get on now! Get!" Spike yelled, running up at them waving his arms and screaming. "Go on, take off! Go find some other prey to munch on."

Recognizing a much bigger – and far older and more dangerous – predator, with more of his kind, they scattered, slowly at first, and then turning in a mob to run back up the side street the SUV had evidently come down.

The driver rolled down his window, and leaned his arm on the frame. "Thanks. We're pretty happy to see you, mister."

"No problem, mate," Spike said, "Happy to help. I was getting a mite peckish, I was." Looking in past the man, and the camera man's legs, he saw that the passenger was an attractive black girl in her mid to late twenties. Even better. Dinner and a show.

"Carl Kolchak, L.A. Beacon," the driver was saying. "Not sure exactly what we'd have done if you hadn't come along... "

"Oh, I know," Spike said. "Same thing you're about to do now. Die." He reached over and grabbed a fistful of the man's jacket front in preparation for yanking him out of the window and throwing him to the minions. He wanted the black bird for himself –

– And there was a screech of tires as another car came around the corner behind them, and slid to a halt sideways. Spike let go of the man, turning about to see what that was all about.

He saw a very familiar figure in long black coat jumping out of the driver's side to land balanced on his feet there, glaring at Spike and his small group. Bugger.

A tall, at least as tall as the first man, and very well muscled, male jumped from the passenger side, landing in some sort of martial artsy stance, holding a katana like sword. He was wearing... Spike blinked. A skin tight green and gold outfit with a high collar, front open almost to his navel and displaying a large, curving, elaborate black dragon tattoo. And a gold mask over half his face.

Two others climbed and jumped out of the back: a pair of cappuccino colored black girls in their late teens, one holding a stake and a short sword, the other gripping a... bloody hell. Gripping an HK sub-machinegun of all things.

The driver of the SUV didn't waste any time in putting it into reverse and backing away as Spike grinned from ear to ear and said, "Well, 'ello, Angelus. Fancy meeting you here."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __North Osgood Street near Wilkins Blvd__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:__4__5pm –_

They had been driving around slowly in more or less circles, or at least rounded ovals, for what seemed like forever now. Aura said as much, and Angel turned to the back seat with a rueful and somewhat sheepish expression.

"I'm sorry, I really am. There's just been too much smoke and gasoline fumes for me to catch a good scent after the last time that I lost it," Angel said, sighing.

"Ah." Aura waved it off. "I'm willing to buy that it's not your fault. So... if you were a giant gorilla, where would _you_ take a blonde in a Princess dress?"

"The Empire State Building," Danny said, shrugging.

Aura tapped her nose and pointed to him as Angel smiled slightly. "Unfortunately," she said, "In Sunnydale? Tallest buildings we have are the old Clock tower and the Sunnydale Arms, and we've driven past them both at least a half a dozen times now. No monkey."

Kendra sighed, also. "I am not unsympathetic," she said. "And I am willing to concede, vumpire, dat you have made an admirable effort, and have even been helpful in combat. But dis is not getting us anywhere, and as you have seen, dere are many more innocents that are being harmed, and shall _continue_ to be, if we do not stop this."

"You're right," Angel said, nodding.

Kendra blinked at him, obviously expecting an argument. She said, "Beg pardon?"

"I said, you're right," Angel repeated, putting the convertible into gear. He stepped on the accelerator, turning to head east on across street. "We're not accomplishing anything useful here, and people are getting hurt. I can always go back to searching for Buffy after I take you to Giles and we explain the situation, while you search for answers to this mess."

"Dat is... surprisingly logical," Kendra said, nodding.

Daniel sighed as well, as did Aura. "I really hate to leave that girl on the street like she is," Danny said, "But we're not finding her this way. And I don't like seeing all of _this_," he waved, "And not doing anything about it."

Angel opened his mouth to speak, and then a pair of large caliber shots rang out, followed by another. Angel scowled and stepped on the gas, rounding the corner onto Osgood.

They came up the street just in time to see a slender and very blonde man in the process of pulling a man out of the driver's side window of a vehicle. He let the driver go and turned as they came roaring up, and Danny could see that his forehead was ridged with protruding brow shelves, and his face was demonic with yellow glowing eyes.

So were those of the other men around him, some of them transforming even as he watched.

Angel slewed the car to an angled stop as the SUV the man had been yanking someone out of backed up in a hurry. It stopped about fifteen yards away from the intersection, with a man still in the skylight, filming the whole scene. Angel jumped out of the car, followed by Danny, Aura, and Kendra.

The blonde man looked at them and his mouth widened into a smirking kind of grin that was filled with long teeth. "Well, 'ello, Angelus," he said. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Spike," Angel said, drawing a wooden stake. "Can't say I'm surprised to find you, however. Wherever there's misery and bloodshed... "

"Aww. You say the sweetest things, Poncey," Spike drawled as the rest of his fellows spread out a bit, facing them.

"He's dangerous," Angel said to Kendra, not taking his eyes off of the blonde vampire, Spike. "William the Bloody, if that means anything to you."

Kendra nodded. "De Slayer of Slayers."

"Nice to see my rep has gotten around," Spike said. "And you would be?"

"Kendra. De Vumpire Slayer."

"Oh, bloody hell. _Another_ one? Wot, is the Watcher's Council breeding the things now?" Spike looked disgusted, as a few of his felllows began to look a bit nervous.

"How do you, uh... " Danny shrugged, slightly, not relaxing his stance.

"Decapitation," Kendra said, flicking her eyes to his sword. "Or wood to de heart. Your weapon will not harm dem," she said to Aura. "You should withdraw."

Aura gulped. "Good plan. I'll do that." She started backing away around the rear of the convertible.

"I hate to do this, but... " Angel sighed. "Take off, Spike. I really don't have time to want to deal with you right now."

"Wot, and not renew Aulde Lang Syne? I'm hurt," Spike said, stalking forward with his coat flaring behind him. "And, naw. Just not in the mood, Poofter. OK, take him," he said, pointing to Angel, "And the other. The Slayer is mine."

The group of vampires charged forward, snarling, as Spike took a short running step and launched himself in a leaping kick aimed at Kendra's head.

Once again, Danny Rand submerged as his costumed personae came to the fore, and Iron Fist, Warrior of K'un-L'un found himself in the midst of deadly combat.

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Del Mar Way, Waterfront, Sunnydale, Evening 8:45pm – _

Aura had not been exactly correct when she had said that the old Clock Tower was the highest point – or structure – in Sunnydale. Tallest _building_, perhaps, and perhaps also the tallest point she had been able to think of at the moment, but not the tallest structure.

The pyramidal roofed, brick water tower and standpipe at Gunnery Hill, out near the wealthy Shooter's Hill area where Aura and Cordelia lived, was much taller.

As was the slightly newer concrete and brick water tower and standpipe of Altimeeras Towers off of Del Mar, on a small hillside in the waterfront district, near the new water recycling and desalination plant.

Which was where not-quite-yet-a-Princess Cinderella, the former Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer currently found herself: some one hundred and fifty feet up, at the very top of that structure.

With a very large, male, silver-back gorilla currently about three feet away from her and doing its very best to groom her for ticks, or fleas, or whatever it was that gorillas did with each other when they were doing that.

"Stop it," Cinderella said, slapping the large hand away. "I am quite certain that I do not have any of whatever it is that you are searching for on me, and you are quite ruining my already disheveled hairdo, you- you, you... _monkey_." She stamped her bare foot, glaring at him.

The gorilla drew back, eying her with a hurt expression. Well, at least it was no longer fifteen feet tall, Cinderella thought. It had shrunk down to more normal proportions after they had climbed up on top of this... thing. Tower. Whatever.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "I _am_ sorry. I didn't _mean_ to hurt your feelings, but I do not _like_ being pawed at."

Sighing, she reached over and patted her companion's hand in apology. Sigh. Well, he _hadn't_ tried to harm her, merely carried her off despite her protestations. Then again, she supposed that gorillas didn't speak the King's English, and she _certainly_ didn't speak, umm, Gorilla-ese? And she also supposed that he _had_ saved her from those pirates and brigands. Upon reflection, she decided she probably _wouldn't_ have enjoyed being 'properly broken in and trained', whatever that might be.

A pity she hadn't been able to rescue the captives, but, she supposed that that might not have been possible, anyway. A shame, though.

Given the way he'd been acting, and the shy, almost courteous – for a gorilla – manner of him, she guessed that all of those stories about gorillas carrying off young maids in the Dark Continent to ravish them were just that: stories.

Sigh. Almost disappointing. Cinderella had never actually _been_ ravished. She thought she might find it quite enjoyable. Well, perhaps _not_ at the hands of a _gorilla_...

She perked up, smiling broadly. It had _certainly_ been quite an adventure, though, all things considered. The entire _evening_, as a matter of fact, from the time she had appeared all bewildered and then had been rescued by the handsome warrior in the dragon costume, and that dusky warrior maid. Warrior _maids_, actually. She supposed that Lady Aura qualified – she was certainly brave enough, attacking that beast man with nothing but a container lid. She turned into the breeze, letting it blow her hair back from her face as she looked out over the harbour. And oh, _my_ – what a view she had from up here!

The tower had a reasonably broad ledge around the sides, with a few protrusions, and above that, there was a blue, flattened pyramid shaped rooftop, with a smaller open sided, two story cupola on top of that. They were currently in the cupola. There was a door leading inward and down, but having already tried it, she had discovered it to be locked and unable to be opened.

She was looking out now upon a small, obviously man made harbour with wharves, a waterfront area, and a number of docks of various lengths extending outward into the resulting man made bay. There were a number of ships at the various docks, with several of them being currently on fire and burning. As she watched, one gave a great gurgle and an explosion of bubbles, and the rear part, the stern she supposed, began to slide under the surface as it rolled over toward the shore. A dark slick of some sort of fluid with a rainbow sheen spread outward from it, looking very pretty in the firelight.

And out farther in the bay, there was a fully two hundred or more foot fifty gun and fully rigged frigate flying a skull and crossbones, of all things. Cinderella supposed that that was where the pirates had landed from – they had to come from a ship, after all, didn't they? The frigate, while much _taller_, looked positively shrunken compared to the ships that it had fired upon and sunken.

Another sailing vessel, this one steel hulled and longer, and with more cannon, lay off to one side a few hundred yards from the frigate. It was also periodically firing bombardments into the waterfront area along the shorefront.

A smaller vessel, a white one with no sails – my, how odd – sped around very fast by the frigate, firing some sort of rapid fire cannon at the larger vessel that made a deep, chattering noise not unlike Aura's machine-gun. A greatly magnified voice blared out from it, shouting something that Cinderella couldn't quite make out. As it did, the frigate suddenly belched out flames and white smoke from that side, firing a full broadside.

Great gouts of water shot up from all around the small, fast ship. The smaller, white vessel immediately wallowed and slowed, beginning to heel over on its side, and sinking noticeably at the front. Men either jumped from the sides, tiny figures at this distance, or struggled to launch bright orange boats of some kind from the listing sides.

Back toward the north and east, she could see tall flames and vast clouds of smoke coming from somewhere. On occasion, she had seen the lights and shapes of winged things that Aura had stated were _not_ dragons descending slowly in that area. There was another one of those, but much smaller, with rounded, whirling, fan like wings on top, circling the nautical battle. It had something on the sides that read something like "KTTV" and "NEWS" with smaller lettering below, and numbers on the tail. More flames and smoke came from elsewhere about the township.

She supposed that this place _must_ be under a siege of some sort, truly. By the pirates, no doubt, or perhaps whatever "Dark Forces and Powers" it was that Warrior Kendra had mentioned.

Off to the west, down two of the strangely cobbled roads this land had, were a long line of firefly like lights, with, farther up, brilliant red and white and blue flashing and strobing lights.

My. What a strange and truly wondrous place she had found herself in. It was almost enough to make her stop being sad for missing the Prince's Grand Ball.

Almost.

The flying conveyance with the whirling wings left the scene of the nautical fight, sweeping outward and on a course taking it past their tower. It slowed suddenly as it came abreast of their roost, hovering as the small men inside gazed upon her and her companion and pointed.

Cinderella gave them her best and brightest smile and waved at them. One of the men waved back, a bit hesitantly, looking somewhat astounded. After a moment, the gorilla waved over as well.

My, yes indeed. What a strange and wonderful place. And she was able to read the smaller print now: it said "Action News Santa Barbara." She wondered where that might be...

Cinderella nudged her companion with an elbow. "You know, if you would simply carry me back down, we could _both_ go about together and see more of this rather interesting land and have even _more_ adventures."

"Urruk?"

"Oh, never mind."

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: Bubba Gump's, Stearn's Warf, Santa Barbara, Evening 9:05pm – _

Excellent, truly excellent meal, Joyce Summers thought, finishing off the last of her Shrimp Alfredo. She signaled the waiter, pointing to her glass and her empty for another beer. Smiling as the man nodded and hurried off, she tuned back in to her companions dinner conversation.

The Gallery Party had gone quite well this evening, also, she reflected, listening to fellow gallery owner Drego Garcia as he launched into another of his droll little Hollywood stories. She had made a number of contacts, and shared a few dances here and there. Even, she smiled to herself, collected a few male phone numbers and invitations to various assignations. Then as the party started to flag a bit, a number of them had decided to make a quick trip out to Stearns for food and drinks before heading back to the costume event.

The screen of the large, flat screen television at the corner nearest them caught Joyce's eye, and she frowned. Why, she could have sworn that said... the scroll went across again and confirmed her suspicions.

"Shhh!" Joyce said, raising a hand peremptorily. Her companions stopped talking, looking at her in curiosity or surprise. "I want to hear this: it's about Sunnydale."

"Oh, you don't often see your town in the news," one of the women said, frowning.

The voice over came on a moment later with a male anchor saying...

"And _this_ is Steve Perling from KTTV Santa Barbara bringing you a special report from our own Dale Evans and Bill Rutherford in our roving news chopper." He turned his head and said to someone off to the side, lower, "Are we getting sound and feed yet?"

The screen behind him suddenly went to a scene that looked vaguely like Sunnydale Harbor, except that Joyce had never before seen the Harbor on fire and with a large, white sailed vessel in the middle of it. And several other ships, burning merrily away.

"Oh, my. That almost looks like Brackman Lee Walker's sailing yacht," Joyce said. "He's the father of one of my daughter's classmates... Oh! And that looks like Gregory Kendall's ship! He's _also_ a father of a student there... "

"Is that a Jolly Roger it's flying?"

"Shh. I want to hear this now, too," Drego said. "I know Brackman Lee."

"– yes, are we on yet? We have sound? Ah, good," a male voice came on and a camera view cut to a windblown, handsome male face over a dark blue KTTV windbreaker. "And this is KTTV Dale Evans bringing you a breaking news report from Sunnydale California, only thirty minutes down the coast from our own Santa Barbara. We're on a slight delay here – all of this was shot several minutes ago, actually – as there seems to be some unexplained difficulty with radio and other transmissions out of Sunnydale tonight. Cell phones and land lines seem to also be completely affected, with spotty to nearly non-existent service at times. We had to fly five minutes out of the area before we could transmit. We're switching you now to our studio monitors while I provide narration for the scenes you'll be viewing – "

The screen shifted again, suddenly, back to the harbor scene from before, only with an earlier time stamp.

"– As you can see here, and I can hardly believe it myself in this day and age, there appears to be a full blown nautical engagement going on between a Sunnydale Harbor Patrol vessel and a pair of actual, fully rigged _pirate_ ships. You can see the Jolly Roger flying from the flag masts even as we zoom in... "

The ship on the screen suddenly belched white smoke and everyone at the table started and gasped as the Harbor Patrol vessel lurched, wallowed, and began to list.

"... as you can see, the one pirate ship just fired a full _broadside_, sinking the Harbor Patrol ship. We're going to leave this scene briefly – I _promise_ we'll return, but there's a lot going on that's newsworthy in Sunnydale tonight and only one of _us_ – and go to the scene of a massive police investigation now underway at a small club known locally as The Bronze - "

"Oh, gods," Joyce said. "My daughter and her friends hang out there. There was a party there this evening they were going to!"

"– but first we'll detour slightly and do a fly over the docks where a small unit of the badly outnumbered Sunnydale Police Department tactical officers, a couple of Sunnydale County Deputies, and a few Harbor security officers are engaged in a gunfight with an apparently land bound group of pirates..."

"Good lord," another one of the art buyers said, "What on earth is going _on_ in that town?"

"... Good Lord! Are you seeing this too, Bill?"

"Oh, hell, I mean, _heck_ yeah. You're not alone, Dale."

"I'm sorry to sound like I might be drunk or hallucinating, but I swear, atop the Altameeras Water Tower, a Sunnydale Landmark, there is what appears to be an adult male silverback gorilla! And a girl in a princess gown. Our pilot is taking us in for a closer look... "

They camera view swung and panned, and then zoomed in. There was indeed, a large adult gorilla standing on its feet and knuckles in the cupola on top of the tower, next to a disheveled blonde girl in a blue and gold and white ball gown. Even as the narration came back, she gave the camera – or the chopper – a bright smile and waved cheerfully. The gorilla waved also.

"Well, she certainly _seems_ to be in good spirits, Dale. And she doesn't look to be harmed. Oh, look – the gorilla is waving too... "

"Wave back," Bill suggested.

"Why, hey there, Mr. Gorilla..."

Joyce blinked, and sat back in her chair. Gratefully, she accepted her fresh beer from the waiter, and immediately chugged back a third of it.

"What's wrong, Joyce?" Drego asked, his voice sounding slightly concerned. "You look a bit pale."

"That's... that's my _daughter_. Buffy. Up there with the _gorilla_."

"Um, what is your daughter doing with a gorilla, Joyce?" Drego's wife, Katherine asked, frowning.

"oh... I'm sure I don't know, but these days? With Buffy? I'm less and less surprised lately... Oh no! My _other_ daughter is out there in all of that!" Joyce said, her hand going to her mouth as she realized that Dawn _might_ still be out with her friends, and Carlos' father...

* * *

_Friday, October 31, 1997: __North Osgood Street near Wilkins Blvd__, Downtown Sunnydale, Evening 8:5__0__pm –_

My, oh my. This one was _good_, Spike thought. As good as, no – better – a fighter than Buffy Summers, even. And _fast_, at least as fast as he was.

Leaping into the air, Spike threw a spinning jump back kick at the chocolate Slayer's head, using his momentum to bring him on around in an immediate flying hook kick before he even touched the ground again. The mocha skinned girl leaned back away from the first kick like a woman bending under a samba bar, and dropped into an immediate squat as the second, lower kick spun by just barely over her head. She lunged in with the stake, long braid flying behind her, simultaneously cutting in a looping slash at Spike's legs with that wicked looking short-sword.

He skipped back and away from both attacks, slapping aside the stake and twirling his leading shin back and away from the sword point, grinning from ear to ear and laughing like a loon.

Spike was having the time of his life.

He swore, collecting this one to complete his hat trick was going to be the cap on his career, no matter _how_ many slayers he killed later on.

His spinning, whirling, constantly moving style of combat gave him occasional glimpses of the rest of the combat and his surroundings. Angelus was holding his own against the three minions that had rushed him, as was the green and gold clad man. Bloody hell, the tights clad figure was an even _better_ hand to hand fighter and martial artist than this _Slayer_ he was fighting. And fast enough and skilled enough to hold his own against three _vampires_, which most human fighters _couldn't_ do, even with a sword and the skill to use it.

Even as he was whirling past, he saw Green-suit strike a decapitating blow, neatly dusting one minion. The remaining two jumped back hastily, cursing...

Spike's next backhand strike and missed blow brought him around again, briefly, in time to see the green man decapitate one of the other minions with the sword, and nearly take a hand off of the remaining one. Damn.

The other black girl, the one with the firearm, was crouched over the back of Angel's idiotic convertible, frantically trying to dial her cell phone. No telling who she thought she could call that would help...

Angel dusted one, and then another of the minions in quick succession, a stake in each hand. The third and remaining one backed up hastily.

The dark girl threw a low kick that glanced off of Spike's knee, and he cursed, retaliating with a back fist to her jaw that sent her staggering back a few steps. Wot he got for woolgathering in a fight for his life, he supposed. He leapt at her, coming down on his right foot and snapping his left leg out high at her head. She ducked under and –

– Bloody hell, that smarts. Bloody _bitch_ cut him along the trailing _thigh_ with that damned sword.

Not enough to really damage him, but it could slow him, and possibly make him stumble later. He knocked another sword blow aside with the flat of his right palm as he spun back on the sliced leg, and roundhouse punched her across the jaw. She lurched backward, stumbling and going to one knee.

Grinning, Spike moved in, intending to finish it with a kick under her jaw, and then his teeth in her throat. No neck breaking here: he was gonna drain this one and –

– And the bloody _other_ bitch lit him up with that damned Heckler and Koch on full bleedin' automatic. Ow! Son of a bleedin' _bitch!_

No bleeding nifty three round bursts for this one. No, she just clamped down on the damned trigger with the muzzle trained on his crotch and kept firing as he staggered back and the muzzle climbed up, stitching him with rounds from bollocks to gizzard.

"Kendra!" the bitch yelled, finally pulling up and away on that damned gun. Spike shook his head, trying desperately to shake off the pain and recover his bearings before the slayer bitch could recover and move in...

There was a sudden, sharp hot pain across his throat –

* * *

She was dancing, at the top of her game, finally, for the very first time this long evening.

Her Watcher would be proud of her, Kendra thought. Not only was she at her top form, fighting better than she ever had before, even in practice, but she was doing it against the Slayer of Slayers, killer of Nikki Wood and Xin Rong.

She ducked low, snapping out a kick that glanced off the killer's knee, and he cursed, spinning back and then his fist struck her along the jaw as she straightened into it. She shook it off, bending her knees to drop under a high snapping side kick and sliced him along the inside of his weight bearing thigh. William the Bloody stumbled slightly, but recovered almost immediately.

Sacre bleu, but he was good. Better than any other vampire she had ever fought, or even _seen_. No wonder he had slain two slayers that the Council knew of.

She saw an opening and stepped in, thrusting the sword into his midsection. if she could run him through and twist on the way out, she could slow him and set him up for the stake or a decapitating blow –

– He slapped the blade away with his open palm. The opening had been a ruse, and he smashed a hay-maker punch across her jaw with his other fist as he spun away on the cut leg in that insane, spinning, eclectic fighting style of his.

She staggered back and went down to one knee, expecting to die.

William the Bloody stepped in, she saw him preparing the kick with a shift of his weight, and willed herself to roll away from it and to the side.

And Aura opened up on him with that automatic weapon of hers, on full auto. Kendra saw William the Bloody stagger back, his arms flailing as the rounds stitched up along him from the lower abdomen. They struck so fast, at such a high rate of fire, that he actually jittered in place under the impacts as he stumbled back.

"Kendra!" Aura shouted, letting up on the trigger.

Kendra didn't need another prompt, or even that one. She was already up on both feet, and she was moving in fast before the word had even fully left Aura's lips. Her sword came across, level and even and swift –

– And William the Bloody's head parted neatly from his shoulders, a shocked and surprised look still on his wide eyed face as his head tumbled from his neck, and his body began to crumble into dust.

She heard a soft, padding impact on the street behind her even as Aura's shocked, terrified scream hit her ears.

And then a massive, slashing diagonally upward blow caught her across the side and back even as she started to turn, ripping across her like hot swords and sending her tumbling, flying away to one side to land broken and bleeding and shocked on the sidewalk ten feet away.

Darkness closed in around the edges of her vision. She thought, vaguely, that she heard a growling, guttural voice rumble out, "_Thought_ I'd find you sooner or later, Fisty Boy. Let's fucking dance."

Then Kendra knew no more.

Darkness came up and swallowed her whole, and it did not spit her back out.

* * *

.


End file.
